Their Faith in Fire
by yellowmoon3
Summary: The novelazation of the most important episodes for Zuko in season three solely from his viewpoint- journey deeper into his friendships and struggles to leave behind the scars of the past. Mostly Maiko, some Zutara.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own _Avatar: the Last Airbender _and its characters_. _Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko do, as does _Nickelodeon_.

Please Review! This is a birthday present for my sister, but I haven't given it to her yet, so, Sis, if you're reading this, please stop.

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><p>It hits him then.<p>

Then, when the sky is consumed in a raging fire that is beyond even his control. Then, when the world is rent apart by the lightning of a storm only the warriors and those waiting with bated breath can see. Then, when the broken sanity leaves with a deadly finality the eyes of a girl he now calls his sister only in the darkest of his dreams, and the happiest. Then, when the world he is just beginning to know at its best is going up in smoke on all sides.

It hits him, the reason why he is here- the crown prince of a burning nation, seemingly fighting for the wrong side. The losing side. Fate has marked him, branded him with a destiny that has never made sense up until a few precious weeks ago. It's made a him fool of boy, a traitor of a teen, and finally, a man with everything to lose, yet nothing to lose. It has guided him down this path that, no matter how many detours or wrong turns he took, has always ended here. In this Agni Kai. This "meeting of fire", this crossroad of destiny. And only now does he realize he wouldn't have it any other way.

He knows what she, the shell of his sister, is going to do a threadbare moment before it happens, a split second before the jagged blue-white lightning arcs from her fingertips towards the other girl. And he knows what he must do, seeing the fear in his friend's eyes that matches that of his own.  
>He dives to his right and intercepts electric death halfway to its mark. The crown prince of the Fire Nation, who used to be proud of this title, even coveted it, screams in agony and falls at his younger sister's feet, but not before seeing the wordless, pained gratitude in the eyes of the waterbender, as well as the stunned hysteria in those of the other firebender who shares more of his blood than he cares to admit.<p>

His kismet has always meant to lead him here, to this moment. The moment he turns and faces the wrath of the flames. After all he has been through, everything he has lost and gained back, this, it seems, is how it will end.

Fate, it appears, has a cruel sense of humor.


	2. Chapter 1: The Awakening

The iron-colored waves lap against the side of the ship, a floating hunk of metal that suspends the crown prince, newly reunited with his evasive honor, from his polar opposite. And, just watching the water, darkened by the night, the memory hits him, hard.

"_The separation of the four elements is an illusion. We are all one people, living as if divided. We-"_

Prince Zuko cringes and shoves the memory of his father-no, his uncle, where did father come from?- away to rot in some dark corner of his buzzing mind, just like the man who said the words from far away and long ago. Didn't he, the prince whose banishment was sorely regretted as he became the conqueror of Ba Sing Se, know this better than anyone? The Great War had both ripped his life to shreds and given him the opportunity to seize it once more, glue together the pieces. Iroh was just not smart enough to have realized it was the chance at redemption Prince Zuko so often begged for, ever since the mark of his banishment and disgrace was burned so obviously and resolutely onto his face by the man he called both father and lord.

He squeezes his amber eyes shut to the night that encompasses him, pushing the ghosts of the person he used to be away, digging his fingers into his temples to chase off the voices. Spirits, why doesn't his brain understand? He is going home, this is what he's wanted- to be this revered hero, treated, at last, like the future ruler he has always been meant to be, despite what the scars of the past tried to convince him of.

He hears soft footsteps padding almost indiscernibly across the deck. Prince Zuko opens his tormented eyes to find Mai, so trained for stealth, gliding pale and beautiful, almost phantomlike, in her long elegant dress toward him. As a fire bender he is experienced with having flames at his fingertips and under his control, but no matter how hard he tries he cannot seem to dispel the heat from his cheeks in time for her approach. In his mind he thanks his sister Azula for what is probably the first time, if only for reuniting them without actually meaning to.

"Are you nervous?" she asks him, her dark eyes laced with worry, and Prince Zuko prides himself for being one of the few who can spark her deeply buried emotions. He loses himself in the steadiness of her voice, one he used to recognize by the slightest pretty syllable before three long years of estrangement and strife tore them apart. He finds comfort in her stability, which is something he has yet to get to know again.

"Yes," he answers simply, looking back out to sea, where, somewhere beyond the horizon, his kingdom awaited with open arms. "What if my father doesn't accept me? What if he doesn't restore my honor?"

"_You_ already have," Mai replies, turning his face to her. "Stop worrying."

Then she kisses him, slowly lifting her lips to his as hesitantly as if he'd stop her- yeah, that'd happen,-lightly and sweetly and shyly and fifteen years in the making. He'd lived in the Fire Nation for thirteen years before he was banished, but only now does he think he can call it a home.

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><p>Dawn sneaks its way across the sky, spattering the black abyss with oranges and pinks and reds, just the way Prince Zuko, standing next to the captain at the helm, likes it. It takes all of his effort to banish the memories of standing at the helm a different ship beneath different sunrises; he has no time to be remembering his bruised and scarred past now, not with the reality of his future hurtling towards him. The sunrise provides just enough light for him to see the vague outline of the Fire Nation in the distance, the only world he ever wanted to belong in. His true element, so to speak.<p>

"How long until we dock?" Prince Zuko asks the captain hoarsely, swallowing the fingers in his throat grappling with his words.

"Perhaps an hour or so, my Prince. I believe the tides will allow us to bring the ship in today." The captain's eyes widen in terror as he realizes what he's spoken, and he glances at the prince, wondering just how much he and the younger Azula have in common.

Prince Zuko only nods politely and goes inside without another word, panic closing in on him and revealing itself on his face. He slips quietly into his private quarters, thankful that not Mai, Azula, or, Spirits forbid, Ty Lee is around to see him in such a state.

_An hour_, his mind screams, and he crouches on the floor, barely rocking on the waves, with his head in the hands a bit callused by the fire he commands. _An hour. _

The minutes pass all too quickly, and his future pulls him in.

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><p>Prince Zuko thought he couldn't forget what his homeland was like, the way it smells, feels, sounds. Not with it playing center stage in most of his dreams and schemes.<p>

But all the same, he's forgotten just how humid the land is, how vivid the colors of the Fire Lilies are. He's forgotten exactly what a hot bag of Fire Flakes tastes like, and what the outline of his name sound like on the lips of an adoring crowd. He's almost forgotten just how magnificent the esteemed palace is, ornate and sprawling and of stones colored blood-red, and what it's like to be introduced before a crowd as who he is, with no aliases or disguises, with no one expecting any different than what stands before them.

Then, when Lo and Li announce his and Azula's homecoming, proclaiming that the avatar fell, and the Earth Kingdom fell, the crowd falls as well…to its knees in adoration.

Prince Zuko, however, has _not_ forgotten how to feel pain, pain that makes his heart, long ignored, fall too when his eyes notice the empty space on his left side, where his uncle Iroh should be standing.

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><p>There is a wall of flames between Prince Zuko and his father, and he fears it is a warning of what will happen should he say the wrong thing, for he still has nightmare's of his father's fire.<p>

But then his father emerges from where he lounges on his throne, and Prince Zuko realizes with a jolt he is almost as tall as Ozai.

"But I am proud of you, Prince Zuko," the Firelord says, circling his son, assessing what the boy has become. "Proud that you proved yourself when your loyalties were tested by your treacherous uncle. Proud that when the moment came, you managed to slay the Avatar."

Prince Zuko bows his head and bites his lip to hide his shock. _What has Azula done? And more importantly, why has she done it?_

"But most importantly, Prince Zuko," Ozai says, and Prince Zuko forces himself to focus and listen. "I am proud you are my son."

Prince Zuko, surprised and grateful and almost overjoyed, looks into his father's face for the first time in years, and sees a resemblance he has never before.

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><p>"Alright," Prince Zuko demands, barging into the gloom of his sister's bed chambers. "Why'd you do it?"<p>

Azula doesn't move, doesn't even open her cunning eyes. "You're going to have to be a bit more specific."

"Why'd you tell our father that I was the one who killed the Avatar?"

"Oh, Zuzu," Azula sighs, sitting up and slipping gracefully to the floor. Her long black hair is down and she is barefoot, but still Prince Zuko has never seen a person more dangerous as she circles him slowly. "You seemed so worried that Father wouldn't accept you, so I made it so you had nothing to worry about. You should be _thanking_ me. I did you a great favor."

"But… why?" repeats the crown prince.

Azula rolls her eyes. "Come _on_, Zuko. What ulterior motive could I possibly have for giving you all the glory? Unless…" she pauses dramatically as if her next words are ridiculous, "the Avatar was somehow still alive. All that glory would suddenly turn to shame. But, you said it yourself." She lowers her voice and whispers into the back of his neck, "That's impossible."

Prince Zuko fights off the memory of the spirited young woman lit by the greenish glow in the Crystal Catacombs, holding up a vial of healing water and offering to heal his scars. It was impossible, but Prince Zuko, who came from riches to rags and now, somehow, back again, knows that even the impossible can happen.

All the same, he pays the assassin in the dead of that moonless night with both the gold he demands, and the secret he did not. For is it not better to be safe, than sorry?


	3. Chapter 2: The Beach

Alright, for this chapter I had to delete a LOT of dialogue because, as you know, I'm trying hard to make this a fanfic, not an episode. However, I think it turned out rather well. Almost all the dialogue is mine except for the "I'm angry at myself!" bit. That belongs to Avatar and its brilliant creators, who I am in no way affiliated with.

Thanks for reading; I'd appreciate reviews!

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><p>Prince Zuko is just starting to get used to a soft feather pillow beneath his head, servants awaiting his every whim, and a hand to hold in the mornings when it is all ripped away.<p>

"Don't be such a drama queen," Azula drawls with a smug smile. "So our father wanted to meet with his advisors. Alone. With no one else around. Don't take it so personally."

"I feel like I'm getting banished all over again," he mutters, and the others on the ferry tactfully choose to ignore this. "Don't you get it?" he demands of the rest. "We're on a forced vacation."

"I think it's exciting!" Ty Lee, eyes bright, squeals while braiding her hair. "Doesn't your family have a house on Ember Island?"

Azula smiles bitterly. "We used to go there every summer when we were kids."

Azula, Mai, Ty Lee, and Prince Zuko look to the island that will be their home for the next few days. One sees an opportunity in her shrewd dark eyes. Another sees only a chance of scenery, maybe something to lift her boredom. The third sees a weekend that probably won't live up to her sky-rocketing expectations. And the last sees just how easily he can be removed again.

"That was a long time ago."

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><p>Lo and Li's beach house certainly isn't fit for royalty, but Prince Zuko finds it fits Ty Lee just fine. She's giggling and chatting with the old women and her friends, saying endlessly and excitedly that she loves the beach and don't you just <em>love <em>it, too, Zuko, don't you?

"And I just _love_ this bedspread!" she gushes, flopping down into the linen. The prince wonders vaguely just what she doesn't love, and how much she would love _him _if she found out how big of a lie he is living.

"Are you kidding?" Mai asks her good friend and foil. "It looks like the beach threw up all over it."

"Speaking of," Azula says, already in elegant motion, "let's go down there now." It isn't an invitation or a suggestion, and the rest of the group doesn't object. They emerge from the ramshackle house in their swimsuits, squinting in the golden sun and squishing their toes in the soft sand.

"This place is just paradise," Ty Lee says cheerily, but the crown prince does not voice his objection aloud. It may look that way, but it is still a prison for him.

_Prison._ Just the simple word, two syllables, inflict pain on his body and tug anguish out of his heart through way of the spider web seams. He remembers the cold, damp stone under his feet and the imposing claustrophobia brought by the hood over his face as he went to visit the uncle he would be better off without, just days ago. He recalls seeing the old man for the first time since his restoration to honor and favor, sad and silent behind the steel bars. Pathetic. Alone. Iroh has lost. He knows it. Prince Zuko knows it. The entire Fire Nation knows it. So when Prince Zuko had left, why had he felt that twinge in his soul, like he should be there with his uncle, be rotting away next to him, the man he used to accidentally call "father" when he was young? Before he knew better, knew there was only one man he should worry about being a son to.

"Are you okay, Zuko?" Mai asks, putting her hand on his arm and bringing him back to reality.

"Yeah. I'm fine."

Why does he say it like a question?

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><p>After a day of swimming, eliminating all competition sand sports, and spending time with his girlfriend, the prince's worries are just starting to slip away from him for the first time in weeks. That is, until Azula gets them invited to Chan and Ruon Jian's party, and all his anxieties come crashing back.<p>

"A party?" he asks during dinner, first in disbelief, because, somehow, Azula and a rowdy house full of music, food, and people just don't mix in his mind without something catching fire. "Why would we want to go to a party?" This time his voice is doubtful.

"It could be fun," Ty Lee assures, taking a sip of her drink. She turns her gaze to Azula. "Why didn't you tell those guys Chan and Ruon Jian who we were?"

"Oh, I don't know. I guess I was just so used to people worshipping us-"

"-They should." Ty Lee interrupts, flourishing her fork.

"I know they should, and I love it. But I was intrigued about how they would act around us if they didn't know. As if we were perfectly ordinary. Like them."

"That seems out of character for you," Prince Zuko says suspiciously, but Lo and Li answer him before Azula can. Their raspy voices morph together in an eerie but wise statement that reverberates in his mind long after they fall silent.

"Like waves crashing upon the sand, Ember Island can make even the roughest stones smooth once more." They look at each other and the lines etched on their ancient faces. "To the party!"

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><p>"I don't think that's what 'dusk till dawn' is supposed to mean," Mai tells Azula as they trek across the sand.<p>

"Don't be ridiculous," Azula snaps, and Prince Zuko's first instinct is to leap to Mai's defense, despite having seen the scars from her stilettos, despite knowing she can take care of herself.

"Is this their house?" Ty Lee asks before anything can happen further, pointing to the medium-sized bungalow crouching in the volcanic sand. Its windows stare the group down like glowing eyes. Prince Zuko immediately wants to leave; he has enough people watching his moves and waiting for him to fail already.

"I think so," Azula says, charging up the porch and rapping on the door precisely three times. Chan answers with a confused look on his face, square-jawed and cleanly shaven.

"The party hasn't started yet," he says slowly. "No one's here."

Azula raises her eyebrows. "I heard you telling someone you would be partying until dusk till dawn. It's dusk, so we're here."

"That's just an expression."

The crown prince of the esteemed Fire Nation hears Azula say something about being the perfect party guests, but he's too distracted by the way Ruon Jian is looking at Mai over Chan's shoulder. A bit possessively, he puts his arm around the girl's waist, hoping to send the young man a message. He knows just how easily he can lose things, and he's determined it won't happen with Mai. Not Mai, never Mai, not if he can help it.

"That's a sharp outfit, Chan." Azula tells their host as Prince Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee follow the two of them inside, Ruon Jian following Mai's trudge a bit too closely. "Careful. You could poke a hole in the side of a Fire Nation warship, leaving thousands to drown at sea." For the first time in his life, Prince Zuko sees his sister scramble for the words that once so readily obeyed her, trying to make up for it with a nervous smile. Is this his sister? "Because… it's so sharp."

"Uh…thanks?" Chan replies uncertainly, and, behind Azula's back, the prince stifles a short laugh and Mai flashes for just a second something that could possibly be a smile, the ends of her lips curling up just so. Ty Lee looks on at the couple disapprovingly, then gives the struggling princess an encouraging smile.

"Idiot," Prince Zuko hears Azula mutter indignantly to Ty Lee when Chan leaves. Ruon Jian, however, only edges closer to where Mai stands, silent and seemingly oblivious to the boy's persistence.

Hopefully, Prince Zuko looks to the door in the vain hope more guests will arrive, but none do. Already he knows it will not be a good night.

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><p>The party, it would appear, was not going well when he left, but did Prince Zuko really expect any different? He was run out after he shoved Ruon Jian into a vase for flirting with Mai, but so far the following had unfolded: Azula had unintentionally scared their host Chan out of his mind for a reason unknown to him, Ty Lee had managed to knock half the boys at the party unconscious just because they 'all just liked her too much', and Mai had broken up with him after the mishap with Ruin Jian.<p>

Never Mai. Right.

The moon is high and full in the starry sky as he walks alone along the beach, but Prince Zuko cannot set his gaze upon the moon without thoughts of his uncle and the Avatar and the nightmare at the North Pole, cannot look at the stars without failingly trying to compare their beauty to Mai, because the magnificent stars fall short every time.

Without even meaning to, he finds himself in front of the dark mansion that belongs to his family, one that, back then when they were actually happy, seems like a whole different group of people than what they've become.

Nostalgia for what is like a different life overtakes him as he crosses the threshold, stumbles across the relics of the childhood that was cut short by the selfish ambitions of one man, and the sacrificial actions of one loving woman. The paintings on the walls are lies- surely he was never that happy, that free of burdens and scars? Surely his hand was never that small, frozen in time and imprinted in stone?

For some reason, he isn't as surprised as he should be when he turns around to discover his sister on the other side of the dusty room, and he finds himself desperately trying to shake memories of this dejected place out her, to prove that they actually happened and weren't just dreams of another happier life a whole world away.

"Do you remember that time, years ago, when we had that contest to see which one of us could bend the sunset?"

Azula shares a small smile. "I won."

"Liar." but he's smiling sadly, too.

_Azula always lies. _Prince Zuko drives the memory of the small Earth Nation boy from his mind, focuses on ones buried even further down.

"The times when we played war games, and you were the firebender and I would be the waterbender, splashing you with the ocean spray?"

Azula nods. "I won those, too." And rightfully so. Prince Zuko allows himself to remember one thing- the last time he saw Katara. Fire beats water, every time.

"And the time when Mom told us that, if she could, she'd bend the stars close enough so that they'd have to listen to our wishes?"

The smile drops from Azula's face. "She never said that to me." Maybe Azula doesn't think she's won everything, after all. His sister takes a breath, brushes the black hair from her face. "Let's get out of here. This place is depressing."

And it was, in a way. The paintings told him lies, mocked him with what he never really had, not truly. A broken family that he doesn't seem to belong in, one that doesn't belong with each other. Like puzzle pieces that almost fit, but not quite.

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><p>"Are you cold?" Prince Zuko asks Mai as he and Azula approach the circle of driftwood logs on which she and Ty Lee are sitting. She doesn't reply, just pushes his arm away when he tries to sling it around her.<p>

"I'm freezing," offers Ty Lee, seemingly learning nothing from the unconscious boy at Chan's party.

"I'll make a fire," Prince Zuko says quietly, looking to the silhouette of his family's abandoned beach house. "There's plenty of stuff to burn in there."

It's after he throws the painting of his family into the flames that the truce amongst the four goes up in smoke. First Ty Lee explodes, nearly crying, then, more surprisingly, Mai. Seeing her stand her ground against he, Ty Lee, and even Azula makes him only regret her rejection more. If only he hadn't spilled that snow cone into her lap, insulted her at the party, pushed her friend into a vase. If only, if only.

It hits him like a speeding bus- if only he'd gotten just a second longer in the Catacombs with Katara. If only he'd stood by his uncle's side when he was threatened. If only he didn't care what others thought and expected. So many what ifs run through his racing mind, but in his life, there is only what is, and what isn't.

And before he knows it, Prince Zuko is spilling his guts to these people: his sister, who he knows will eventually exploit his vulnerability, his ex-girlfriend, who doesn't want to hear a word he says, and this girl he only used to know, back when he was unscarred and not nearly as remotely angry. "I thought that if I came back, I'd be happy. And I should be! My dad talks to me- heck-" he laughs bitterly "-he even thinks I'm a hero! But I'm just… angry all the time, and I don't know why."

"Well there's a simple question you need to answer, Zuko." Azula says, and through the darkness Prince Zuko thinks he sees her roll her eyes. "Who are you angry at? Is it Dad? Me?"

"No, no…"

"Your uncle?" Ty Lee wonders, and it is all he can do not to cringe in pain.

Prince Zuko shakes his head. "No, no, no…"

"Well then who is it?"

"Yeah, come on, Zuko,"

"Just tell us!"

"I'M ANGRY AT MYSELF!" Zuko, banished prince, enemy of the Earth Kingdom, and fugitive to the Fire Nation, screams. The flames grow to an all time high, illuminating them all in an amber light before diving down again.

"Why?" Azula inquires after a moment above the crackling of the fire.

"Because I'm confused." Zuko finds the explanation tumbling off his tongue, obscuring his thoughts grasping for a rationality that cannot be found. "Because I'm not sure I know the difference between right and wrong anymore."

"You're pathetic," Azula laughs cruelly.

"I know one thing I care about," Mai says, standing up and reaching out to Zuko softly, apologetically. "I care about you, Zuko." And when she kisses him, it's like a glimpse of relief or a second of vacation, but, like all good things, it doesn't last.

Strange, how Lo and Li said Ember Island would make him smooth again. Zuko only feels more jagged now, feels so sharp and unpredictable that he might just cut the whole world open without meaning to, because he's already done the same thing to his own heart.


	4. Chapter 3: The Avatar and the Firelord

Woohoo! Chapter 3! I feel like I got a little sloppy towards the end of this chapter, but, you know, I tried.

I thought of a poem for chapters 1-5. "Roses have thorns/Petals crumble like ash/ As the forces of fire/ And deadly desire/ Malevolently clash."

Enjoy and review!

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><p>Gasping for air in a tangled sea of silken sheets, Prince Zuko awakes from nightmares of both his father's and his own raging flames. His shaking hands graze the scar that mars the skin beneath his eye, panicked, and it takes a few minutes before he realizes that only most of it was just a dream.<p>

A sound slips under the crack of the wooden door, echoes through his dark bedchamber. Footsteps, without a doubt. Prince Zuko's eyes fall on the window across the room; the sky is still black, the night of the new moon empty of any light, as the searing summer heat has snuffed out every star in a wisp of smoke. Who dares disturb him at this time of night?

Silently lighting the lantern beside his four-poster bed with just a snap of his wrist and a deep breath, the prince creeps across the floor and unbars the door, prepared to give whatever person that waits beyond the door, servant, royal, or messenger, a piece of his mind. But to his amazement, when he thrusts open the door, no one is in the corridor. A fine scroll lays solitary at his feet, and for some reason he is hesitant to pick it up. Why didn't the messenger want to show his or her face? He draws the scroll close to him and closes the door on whoever was outside.

_Maybe they just didn't want to disturb me, _his brain tells him, but something in his gut says otherwise, loudly and defiantly and refusing to be ignored. It's this same feeling that screams at him not to read it aloud when he unfurls the scroll, this same feeling that tells him not to dismiss the words as utter garbage like he originally intended.

_You must learn the history of your great-grandfather's demise._

What is that supposed to mean? How is that relevant to anything that was happening either in the war outside the capitol walls or the one inside the prince?

Shaking his head and resisting the sudden urge to burn it to a crisp, he tosses the parchment aside. It lands on the lit lantern, revealing a hidden message brought out by the heat. Whoever sent this must know the prince has a temper.

_The Fire Sages keep the secret history in the Dragon bone Catacombs._

"The Catacombs," Prince Zuko says in a low voice, but that of the Dragon Bones is not the first to come to mind. He gulps and squeezes his eyes shut, extinguishing the lantern despite knowing that it's easier for his past to find him in the dark, when it burns brightest.

_Surely the man's death will not have changed come morning, _the prince thinks, begging for sleep to claim him before his memories do.

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><p>"But <em>how<em> did he die?" Prince Zuko persists, blocking his sister's path.

Azula rolls her eyes and shoves him aside, calling over her shoulder as she walks away, "Peacefully. In his sleep. He was _ancient_."

The prince grimaces, having learned nothing valuable from her. Old age? What "secret history" was there to possibly learn about that? Frustrated, he slams his fist against the wall. Why does he even care? It wasn't like his great-grandfather's life story is more important than anything that is happening. . Besides, the note was cryptic and suspicious and delivered in the dead of night- Prince Zuko even goes as far as suspecting it is a trap for him.

All the same, the voices in his head and gut are screaming for him to find out, to not dismiss it, to stare it full in the face and take whatever it is head-on. Perhaps just _looking_ in the Catacombs will lay them to rest.

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><p>Hushed and alone in the darkness of the Catacombs, a yellowed scroll in his lap, Prince Zuko stares at the bottom of the parchment, confused.<p>

_I can feel my own life dwindling. I have spent the remainder of my time in search of the new Avatar, but somehow he manages to evade me. But I know he's out there, somewhere, the enemy's last hope: the last airbender._

"That can't be it!" he says, baffled. "There has to be more!"

But there isn't, and the last will and testimony of his great-grandfather Sozin, the first Firelord to harness the power of the Great Sozin's comet and the Firelord who began the Great War leaves the sixteen-year-old prince with only more questions than when he started.

"Hey, you! What are you doing in here?" a voice bellows, and Prince Zuko glances up, startled. A Fire Sage gawks at him, and the man's eyes widen when he realizes who the intruder is.

"Prince Zuko," the sage gasps, his nose scraping the floor in his bow. "My humblest apologies."

Prince Zuko raises a hand to stop his groveling. "I was just reading about the great Firelord Sozin, in honor of his comet's return." he lies, standing up and stretching.

"Is there anything I can get you, Your Highness? Tea? Another lantern? Please, do not hesitate to ask. Your regal wish is my command."

"No, no." It takes all of his effort to keep his voice level as the man's suggestions trigger something in his mind. "I… I'll just be on my way."

He practically runs out the door and up the spiraling stone staircase, up into the city, which is settling peacefully in the dusk. He takes a sharp left, his gaze set on the tall cylinder building in the distance. The closer and bigger it grows, the more he is sure of himself that the answers await him inside one lonely man's cell.

The guard says nothing as Prince Zuko charges inside, heads down the familiar path toward his uncle's cell; the prince has been here before, knows the drill. He bursts into the room.

"It was you!" he spits at the old man, stringy-haired and sad-eyed. "You sent that note!" Uncle Iroh doesn't answer, which only infuriates his nephew more.

"Well, I _did_ find the secret history. Or should I say, the history-most-people-already-know! You said I had to learn about my great-grandfather's demise, but he was still alive in the end!" "No," Iroh replies stonily. "He wasn't."

"What?" Rapidly, Prince Zuko runs the details over in his mind once more. Sozin beginning the war, wiping out the air nomads, and defeating Avatar Roku.

"You have more than one great-grandfather, Prince Zuko."

And suddenly, he doesn't want Iroh to say the words, the ones that will turn his world upside down again, ignite his inner turmoil once more. Sozin was his father's grandfather, but his mother's grandfather… No, it can't be true, it can't be-

"Avatar Roku," he murmurs, looking up at his uncle for the confirmation he doesn't need nor want.

His uncle nods gravely. "You may think this means inner conflict was born into you, but this is a lie. Born in you is the opportunity to put the world at peace once more."

Prince Zuko presses his palms to his ears, sounding painfully like a frightened child, scared of the dark. "Well, maybe I don't want it! Make her! Make Azula do it!" He knows his plea is ridiculous, but it is the last fruitless card he has to play.

Uncle Iroh almost snorts. "Zuko," he tells the teenager, who is seeming more and more like the frightened boy he really is, a boy dressed in his father's armor, "it must be you."

"No, it doesn't!" Prince Zuko yells, fire spitting from his fists. "It won't be! You can't decide my destiny for me! I'm not the…I'm not the Avatar, Uncle!"

"The Avatar is dead." Iroh says unconvincingly, sitting back.

"No," Prince Zuko chokes out, crumbling to the ground and burying his face in his hands. "No. He isn't."

Iroh nods curtly, as if he already knew, then continues. "All your life, Prince Zuko, you have lived for others. Now it is time to live for yourself."

"That's not what you're telling me! This fairytale of yours isn't what I want!" "Isn't it?" Iroh persists.

Prince Zuko stands, scared and broken and furious and confused. "You're crazy!" he accuses, scratching the tears out of his eyes. "You're a crazy old man!" He turns to the door, shoulders shaking as he turns his back on Iroh once more, and it takes all of his willpower to do so. It is Ba Sing Se all over again, and Prince Zuko can feel is torn once more into pieces and scattered to the winds that can blow him over with a single gale, here in an old man's prison cell, the only place he is this vulnerable anymore.

Then, the words tumble clumsily from his lips, a promise he has every intention and no intention of fulfilling. "The eclipse is in a few days," he whispers at the threshold. "The Avatar will be in the city. And I…" he gasps for precious air. "I'm going to end this. I will."

Iroh only nods, even though Prince Zuko never clarified just what he was going to end- the Avatar, once and for all, or the full-blown war inside him, a destiny waiting to be fulfilled, decided by a single choice.

When Prince Zuko storms from the room, however, he isn't sure himself.


	5. Chapter 4: Nightmares and Daydreams

When Prince Zuko first hears of the war meeting in a passing comment from Mai, he is sure there has been a mistake. Why must he hear of it from someone who isn't even going, someone who heard it herself by way of the prince's little sister? Don't they want him there?

"Don't worry about it," Mai tries to tell him, placing both her delicate hands on either side of his face and forcing him to look at her. "Why would you even _want_ to go? Just think of what happened at the last war meeting you went to!"

"I know, I know!" How could she think he could forget, when the memory, his very worst, is burned both into the back of his mind and the left side of his face? But this is his chance to erase all that, pretend it never happened, prove to everyone, especially Ozai, that he deserves to be here, deserves to be the crown prince of the Fire Nation.

Mai, however, remains adamant, even if Prince Zuko's opinion begins to waver after a less than encouraging talk with Azula later that afternoon. By the time it's over he wants nothing more than to firebend the smug smirk off his sister's face, give her a scar to match his. How dare she call him a paranoid child and act like she was better than he was, something he is starting to believe.

Just minutes after the conversation occurs, he storms into Mai's house, fuming.

"Zuko, what happened?"

"Azula got an invitation." he explains through gritted teeth. "She told me to stop acting like a child and just go, even if I didn't get one, too."

"Maybe she's right." Mai says, and Prince Zuko raises his eyebrows, wondering if she's spending a bit too much time with his sister. "You are the son of the Firelord, after all. They won't refuse you."

"My father might."

Mai sighs. "Fine. Then just don't go, and stop worrying about it. It'll probably be really boring, anyway." She says the last few words with a small smile.

"But I _want_ to go!"

"Then, Spirits, Zuko, _go!_"

"I can't! No one told me about it for a reason!"

"Maybe they figured you already knew."

"You know what?" Prince Zuko says, "Forget it. I'm not going. I don't even think I want to."

Mai rolls her eyes, kisses his cheek lightly, and Prince Zuko is suddenly glad for the extra time to spend with her, even if it is during an important war meeting. "Good thing you're so quick to make up your mind about these things, Zuko. And I'm sort of glad that's what you decided." She swallows, but her face remains expressionless, even though she won't meet his eyes. "Because I… don't hate you."

Prince Zuko smiles. "Yeah, I mean, why should I go to a boring war meeting? I can just learn all I need to know from you. Especially about laying siege to something."

She frowns slightly. "Tell me what I'm laying siege to, again?"

Prince Zuko can feel a blush creeping up his cheeks. Gulping, he says, "I think you know." Surely that's why he can't hear it pounding in his chest, can't seem to swallow it down his throat, because he doesn't have it anymore?

Mai blinks, but she stays impassive, stoic. "Oh."

Suddenly a knock on the door interrupts them.

"Prince Zuko!" the servants shouts, and he pulls open the door. "You're wanted at the meeting; everyone is waiting."

"They… want me there?"

"Yes!" the servant replies hurriedly. "Firelord Ozai would not begin until you arrived, sir." "Told you." Mai breathes, and the prince shoots her an apologetic look. "Do you mind if I…?" he cannot even bear to finish the sentence.

"I thought you didn't want to go." she says, but Prince Zuko cannot figure out what she's saying, what the look in her eyes is depicting.

"Prince Zuko, Your Grace," the servant interrupts timidly, "I apologize, but I must insist that, if you wish to go, you must hurry."

"I'll go," he tells the man. "I'm sorry, Mai. I'll come see you after the meeting is over, okay?" But he doesn't wait for an response.

* * *

><p>Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation stands before the curtain that divides the meeting from him. It has been three long years since he last passed it, back when he was still a young boy, and lost everything he thought he wanted.<p>

_Thought _he wanted? Where had that come from? Of course this is what he wants, regardless of what traitorous Iroh tries to impose on him. Right? Right? His mind says yes, hurriedly, but his heart remains silent.

Taking a deep breath, knowing he is about to walk into the pit of flames, he pulls aside the curtain and slips inside, the scar on his face reminding himself and everyone in the room that he has something to prove.

* * *

><p>Prince Zuko watches as his father looks to each of his highest general's in turn for status reports.<p>

"The citizens have been informed of the evacuation plan for the eclipse, Your Highness, and your chamber has been prepared."

"Excellent, excellent." Ozai says. "And what are your suspicions on the leaders of the attack?" "Supporters of the Avatar, Firelord Ozai."

Azula pipes up, "It's a good thing the Avatar is dead."

Prince Zuko stares daggers at her while the rest of the room watches him curiously.

"Yes," says Ozai, his words clipped, eager to move on. "Quite." He turns to another general, further down the table.

"The North Pole is ours, Your Grace."

"As it should be. And New Ozai?" A different man replies. "The city that was once Omashu is prospering, and their crazy old king is still cooperating and imprisoned."

"Good. And the Earth Kingdom colonies in general?"

"All well under your rule, Firelord. There have been a few skirmishes, but nothing we need to concern ourselves with too intently. Just a few Earth Kingdom boys playing dress up. We've managed to capture a battalion and one of their leaders. The boy's name is Sen Su, apparently."

Prince Zuko feels his insides freeze, and wishes with all of his being that he didn't recognize the name.

"Excellent. And what have you done with them?"

"We were awaiting your decision, my lord." Ozai smiles thinly, amused. "Dress them in the finest Fire Nation armor and put them on the front line."

"Sir?"

"Weaponless." The order makes Prince Zuko's blood run cold, but he manages to wrestle off the memory of a dusty Earth Kingdom town before it overtakes him completely.

"And Ba Sing Se?" Ozai continues. "How is the '_Impenetrable_ City?'" There is a tentative spot of laughter in the room.

"Well under our control, my lord. The citizens have actually…been rather quiet."

"Is that so?" Ozai asks. "They must be planning something. Prince Zuko!" Ozai addresses his son, on his direct right side, unexpectedly. "You've spent a great deal among the Earth Kingdom commoners. What do you gather of them?"

Prince Zuko looks down at his hands, folded in his lap. "The Earth Kingdom is made up of strong and proud people. They are resilient and will survive much of what we throw at them."

"Interesting," Ozai muses. "Princess Azula, any thoughts to add to your brother's statement?"

Azula shrugs, rather blasé. "I don't see why we just don't burn the entire kingdom to the ground."

Prince Zuko is stunned. How can she say such a thing in such an indifferent manner, when the very thought for him triggers painful memories and almost _hurts_ to even think about? After all, she too lived there for a brief time.

_But Azula doesn't love, _Prince Zuko reminds himself. _She is incapable of caring. She didn't know the people the way I did, never lived the way they and I did._

Ozai blinks. "Interesting, Azula. Yes, yes, very interesting… as a matter of fact, why _don'_t we? The comet will soon be upon us; one hundred years ago my grandfather Sozin used its power to eliminate the Air Nomads. Why don't we do the same to the Earth Kingdom?"

There is a general murmur of assent from everyone but Prince Zuko, but no one seems to notice how he's abstained from comment. For inside the teenager, something has broken beyond repair at his father's declaration. To his absolute horror, the prince can already see flames burning and dancing and devouring before his eyes, can see suffocating smoke, black as pitch, billowing into the air. He can hear the screams of the people he has come to know in his travels, can smell the revolting and repulsive odor of the burning flesh of their bodies: Lee. Smellerbee. Song. Longshot. Jin. June. He can hear the triumphant crackling of the greedy flames amongst the screaming as the world he lived in for months on end goes up in the smoke of his sister's and father's flames. Why don't the others hear it, too? Why can't they? Why is he the only one?

Inside Zuko, months and months and months in the making, the fire that once burned so eagerly to please his father, as well as his nation, is finally snuffed out; and Zuko, surprisingly, is not sad to see it go.

When the meeting is over, he stumbles out of the room as if in a trance, and even the fact that Mai came to wait for him doesn't faze him in the slightest.

"How did it go?" she inquires, but Zuko only stares up at the wall.

"When I entered the meeting," he replies quietly after a tense moment, "I found that my father had saved me a seat next to him. I was literally at his right hand. And during the meeting, I was the perfect prince. But I was nowhere near myself."

"And who are you now, Zuko?"

Zuko looks at Mai and is almost surprised to see genuine interest in Mai's eyes, stunned to see her one hundred percent riveted for once.

"Honestly," he answers, "I think I've finally figured it out."


	6. Chapter 5: The Day of Black Sun

Zuko sits in agonized silence at a desk, his pen poised over the parchment. The words he is so desperately searching for, however, don't come out of the pen or his brain. The eclipse in only in a few hours; he is running out of precious time.

It is only for Mai, and Mai alone, that he is willing to waste it, his last few hours of peace and acceptance in the Fire Nation capitol. He, Azula, his father, the servants, and the entirety of the palace guard have already been evacuated underground in preparation for the eclipse, so he has already said his goodbyes to his room, his palace, his chances of ever being honorable in his people's eyes.

It is Mai that he is having trouble with. He knows he does not have the courage to face her, doesn't have the time, so instead he is attempting to pour his soul onto a piece of parchment without making it too obvious. After all, she will, without a doubt, hate him after this.

So far, the only words he has managed to write are "Dear Mai", and even that has made him want to stay, if only for her sake. But he knows he can't, and she would never come with him. He knows that for every time she said she didn't hate him, she is going to hate herself. Zuko knows this, and still wants to leave. It is his destiny; he knows that now.

It takes a painfully long time, but he finally finishes writing, although it is nowhere near what he wants to say. It will have to do, though, because the eclipse is approaching.

He hurries from the room, his broadswords slung over his back, and maneuvers his way through the labyrinth of dirt and tile halls, scouring them for Mai without success. He is just about to give up when he finds a familiar face through the crowd of frantic soldiers preparing for the assault.

"Zuko!" Ty Lee waves him over cheerfully. "What's up?"

"Listen, Ty Lee, will you do me a favor?"

She cocks her head curiously. "Sure, Zuko. What is it?"

He passes her the scroll for Mai. "Will you give this to her? Mai, I mean? Tell her I'm sorry. Tell her.. tell her goodbye."

"Goodbye? Zuko, are you going somewhere?"

"Yes, Ty Lee, but I can't tell you right now. I'm sure you'll hear about it soon enough."

She looks puzzled. "Do I need to worry about you?"

"Yes." Zuko admits. "But this is just something I have to do. Alone. Just promise me you'll give the letter to her."

"I…I promise, Zuko."

"Thank you," he replies, and turns to walk away again.

"Zuko!" Ty Lee shouts, making him turn around, startled. "Goodbye," she tells him with her big, innocent eyes, eyes in which he sees his childhood friendships. Before he can object, because she knows he will, she throws her arms around him in a quick, final embrace. But to her surprise, and Zuko's, too, he finds himself hugging her back.

"Goodbye, Ty Lee," he murmurs into her hair. "And thank you. For everything."

"Of course, Zuko. But you have to promise me something, too."

"And what's that?"

She grins, pulls away from him. "Come back."

Zuko opens his mouth so that the lie can spill out- yes, sure, of course he will- but it doesn't. "I'm sorry," he tells the girl he can now call his friend again, for maybe the last time, "but I can't promise you that. Thank you for being there for me. Goodbye."

And before she can say another word, Zuko disappears into the crowd.

* * *

><p>Zuko faces the closed ornate doors, breathing deeply. The eclipse, he knows, is at its most powerful point; he has less than ten minutes to spill his guts to his father without facing the fire. Less than ten minutes to spit in death's face, and his father's. Less than ten minutes to give up everything he would once kill for.<p>

And the strangest thing is, he's ready.

Pushing the doors open, he walks inside, leaving behind his last chance to go back, to pretend these insane thoughts never happened. He leaves behind his title of prince, and, oddly, just plain Zuko seems just fine now.

"Zuko," his father, the firelord, says as his son enters the room, nodding a curt hello. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to tell you… goodbye." He couldn't get the words out, they got stuck in his throat; he was going to have to ease into it, like freezing water.

"Goodbye?" Ozai laughs, a harsh barking laugh. "Where on earth are you going?"

Zuko takes a rattling breath, ignoring the blood whooshing in his ears. "I've been thinking a lot lately about my place in the universe. My destiny. I used to think my destiny shaped me, but now I know that _I_ shape _my_ destiny."

"Spirits, Prince Zuko, you're starting to sound like your uncle."

"Maybe that's a good thing."

Ozai purses his lips. "Your uncle is a failure and a traitor."

"Maybe so," Zuko admits, "but he was a better father to me than you ever were. So after I leave here, I'm going to free him from his prison. And then," he stops for a breath, for the oxygen he desperately needs, "And then I am going to join the Avatar."

Ozai looks stunned. "The Avatar is dead; Azula told me you killed him yourself!"

"Azula lied; she was the one who shot him with lightning, but she knew there was a possibility he was still alive, so she told you it was me. The Avatar is alive, and I am going to teach him firebending. I am going to help him defeat you."

"Why don't you just kill me now, and save the boy the trouble? After all, neither of us can firebend at the moment, but you have a weapon, and I don't," Ozai taunts, hiding his outrage.

"Because I know my destiny; I make it, after all. But finishing you, that's the Avatar's. But that doesn't mean I won't be there cheering him on."

And with that, he turns to leave.

"Wait," Ozai calls after him, playing his final card. "Don't you want to know what happened to your mother?"

This makes Zuko stop, makes his eyes widen. He turns and rushes at Ozai, quick as a flash, crossing his broadswords around his father's neck.

"Where. Is. My. Mother?" he demands, his face twisted into a snarl.

Ozai smiles, despite having swords at his throat. "Your mother did horrible things the night of Azulon's death, treacherous things. I had no choice but to banish her. It is only now, however, that I realize banishment is too soft a punishment!"

Zuko doesn't realize the eclipse has ended until his father's fire comes crashing at his face. Stopping it just in time, he leaps down from his father's throne and slings his broadswords across his back again, ready to return whatever bending is thrown at him.

When Ozai summons lightning, Zuko almost smiles.

It hurtles towards him, the crackling blue-white lines, the countless volts of deadly energy; Zuko can feel it as if runs through his arm and down to his stomach, knowing that if it even gets close to his heart it will kill him. He thanks the Spirits once more that he no longer has it, that Mai keeps it locked away somewhere, if only until Ty Lee delivers the letter. The lightning, then, is redirected out his other arm, using up all Zuko's strength and concentration. When the jagged forks go crashing back towards Ozai, the look on the Firelord's face is almost comical. Zuko sees, for the first time, fear in his father's eyes, and it gives him just the distraction he needs to hurry from the room to where his fate awaits.

He makes it to the prison uncaught- even Ozai cannot send news that fast- to find Iroh is already gone. He shoves the guard against the unforgiving, unyielding stone wall and demands answers. The guard stutters out some story of the eclipse, and his uncle just leaving his cell. He was like a one-man army, the man tells him. Unstoppable.

And that is all Zuko needs to know. Just knowing his uncle is free and safe from harm for now is enough. He has to use the remainder of his time before news of his battle with Ozai spreads to get to his war balloon, and determine the flying bison from the clouds in the sky.

Getting to his balloon is easy enough, as if finding the bison; he is, after all, an expert after tracking the Avatar for three years. It's catching up that is the problem, as is what to do when he finally does.

Then, he is hit with a terrifying thought, up there all alone in the now sunlit again sky. He sees her again in his mind's eye- Katara, fighting for her life up against Zuko and Azula in the Crystal Catacombs, supporting the Avatar's lifeless body. Why would they let him join their group? In fact, why should they let him approach them at all?

It's a chance Zuko will have to take. To go forward is to risk being killed, but to go back is to assure it, but whether it would be at his father's or Mai's hands he isn't exactly sure.

It's Zuko's last gamble, his final transition.

And, if he isn't careful about what his next move is, his last day alive.


	7. Chapter 6: The Western Air Temple

_A child's wish presented_  
><em>On the sky, suspended yet higher;<em>  
><em>The child does not seem to know<em>  
><em>That the stars are flesh of fire.<br>_ - Me

Sorry about the implied Zutara in this chapter; I promise I will attempt to stay true to the ending but I couldn't resist. I mean, he throws himself in front of a lightning bolt for her, I almost _had_ to say something. Anyway, welcome to what I call part two.

* * *

><p>Stubborn clouds obscure Zuko's vision in the small, scarlet war balloon, and he eventually loses sight of the sky bison, even when the beast lands. This doesn't worry him, however. He knows where the Avatar and his friends are going, for he has been there himself, three years ago when his banishment was still as fresh as the scar on his face and he didn't much care at all for his uncle's love.<p>

Uncle Iroh. Zuko wonders painfully how he is ever going to find the man, and, even if he does, how this same man will ever forgive him for what he has done.

The Western Air Temple beckons to him like a long-lost but vivid dream, misty and barely passing for the cellophane clear it once could; he used to see the ruins of the deceased people as a symbol of the power of the nation that _would _one day be his once more. Now it is only a reminder of the sick and twisted future the Fire Nation hopes to delve into in order to conquer every one of the four corners of the world, as well as the four elements that inhabit them. The temple, empty but still having the feeling of a strong, lingering presence, clings to the side of a jagged cliff face. The bottom of the canyon is almost unidentifiable; there is too much mist hanging in the air, making strange swirling shapes that ask Zuko what he wants by twisting into familiar objects.

Hoping to go unnoticed by the troop of miserable pedestrians that is the Avatar and his friends, Zuko bends the flickering fire in the air balloon down a bit so he can go lower. _Maybe if I found them and offered them a ride…_ Zuko thinks, then shakes it off as a stupid idea. _No. Definitely not. Maybe it's best if I just… approach them. Cautiously._

With each moment that passes Zuko questions his judgment more and more. What has he done? How could he have, with a crown and a wonderful girl and a maybe an acrobatic friend waiting for him back home, now gone forever, just like that? And what if the Avatar doesn't accept him, but doesn't kill him, either? For some reason, this is what Zuko dreads most, because he has absolutely nowhere else to go.

Carefully, the anxious teenager maneuvers the balloon down to the top of the cliff, knowing, that, to Team Avatar, he is just a dot in the distance- a rock, an animal, as they are to him.

The air, despite it being late summer, is chilly and unwelcoming as Zuko withdraws a rope and hook from the balloon's basket. The dots on the other side of the cliff are growing, and he knows he must get moving.

Clinging to the side of the cliff, Zuko propels downward into the unknown.

* * *

><p>The rock is sharp beneath his bleeding and beaten hands, the dirt encrusted under the nails clutching desperate the evasive handholds. Zuko's sandals are worn so he can feel the height and point of each stone on his feet. He is only halfway down the cliff to the temple but is entirely ready to give up.<p>

Suddenly, the mist in front of him dissolves momentarily and a colorful blur races past on gliding orange wings. Zuko presses himself further against the rock, praying the boy on the glider, his old quarry and now his only hope, does not notice him. Not yet. If things go wrong when he is suspended off a rock face by a fraying old rope, the consequences could be horrifying, even more so than the life he's left behind at the top of the cliff.

And in a flash, the Avatar is gone. Disappearing out of his grasp, just like he always seems to do for as long as Zuko can remember.

Zuko releases the laborious breath he hasn't realized he's been holding and continues clawing his way down, a dangerous and arduous trek, to the temple's overhangs. For the first time in his life the exhausted teen wishes he could bend something other than fire, could create rather than destroy. But then he sees his uncle's face in his mind and knows immediately what the old man would say if he ever voiced this shameful thought aloud. _Zuko, _he would say, _fire is a source of light and life and warmth, and is only dangerous and wild when we let _ourselves_ be. _And with this thought in mind, one he concluded entirely by himself but still not be himself, Zuko finally has faith in his own fire. And maybe, just maybe, if he plays his cards right, the Avatar will as well.

Letting out a moan of exhaustion, the boy drops the last few feet between him and the overhang and lands heavily and painfully on his scraped hands and knees. He panics for a second; the Avatar is not far away, has he been too loud?

There is no sound of alarm or acknowledgment following his noisy landing, and he takes that as a good sign. Peering into the temple for any vigilant eyes, he clamors down to the concrete floor, breathing too heavily. The thought to cut the rope passes his mind fleetingly, but he brushes it off, considering an alternative if flight is necessary. Voices come from a few rooms away; this is it. The moment has come for him. It will either make him or break him, ignite a righteous fire in him or throw him on a pan over the flames to fry. He forces hopeful thoughts worthy of even Katara's standards to flood through him, soothe his screaming nerves and instinct that yells for escape, as he paces through hallways cast in shadow. Children's voices come from behind him, and he, ducking behind a door, sees the blur of a boy in a wheelchair, one in an oversize helmet, and another older one with a mustache race through a different room and out of sight. He knows those aren't the ones to follow; he can hear a stronger, more serious voice, clear as day, from the room adjacent. It shocks him how easily he recognizes Katara's voice, one he's heard only on occasion and on one day he yearns to free himself of.

And this sound, this bell that is the fierce and beautiful waterbender's voice, is enough to make him want to flee all over again, because if things do not go his way, he knows she will be the last one to consider mercy. But he resists the urge, and slips into the room, using the bison's bulk for cover. The arguing group doesn't seem to notice him pressing himself against the animal's fur, rising and falling with its breathing. It doesn't mind him, since he rescued it in Ba Sing Se, just bleats in pleasant surprise.

"Aang," Katara is saying, "just hear me out for a _minute_ before changing the subject."

"Fine," the Avatar replies, sounding reluctant and somewhat distracted, not himself.

Katara's brother, the one with the boomerang, picks up the conversation. For the life of him, Zuko cannot remember his name. "Aang, we need to think about how you're going to learn firebending. Who on earth is going to teach you?"

Zuko's eyes widen- it's too good to be true! The Avatar needs a fire bending teacher, and here he is, offering his services. How can they say no?

He risks a peek around the bison's hide, and immediately his gaze lands on Katara's eyes, looking at the Avatar with such a practical intensity both Zuko and Aang almost cringe.

"I don't know," the Avatar, Aang, replies quietly.

Katara's gaze softens considerably. "We could look for Jong-Jong again," she offers, gentler.

"Right," Aang scoffs, "like we're ever going to run into Jong-Jong again." "Actually," the blind earthbender- Tough? No, Toph- contributes, "I think there's someone here that might be able to help us out…"

These words send fear and panic coursing hot then freezing through Zuko's veins. How long has she known of his presence? Of course, the bison chooses that particular moment to grunt and shift, revealing Zuko's face, one the group recognizes immediately, a face full of scars and shame.

"Hi" is all he can think to say, then grimaces. "Zuko here," like that was any better.

"Zuko!" Katara shouts, and instantly they are all on their feet, ready to attack.

"What are you doing here?" Aang demands.

The answers stick in his throat; _I was just here to apologize for trying to kill you before, and was wondering if you would let me teach you how to shoot fire out of your body and kill my father for me._

"He's here to capture us, obviously. There's probably a whole army out there," the boy- Sokka!- snarls.

"Maybe he just has a death wish," Toph offers, almost good-naturedly, and Katara shoots her a withering look before remembering she can't see it.

"Actually, I came here to…uh, well, listen. I know I used to be a bad person. I used to be bad, but now I'm good, I guess? Uh, I can firebend- but I guess you know that… you know, from when I was…attacking you? Yeah, I guess I should apologize for that." He smacks his forehead, knowing he is failing miserably. "Anyway. I can teach firebending. To, uh, to you." He sighs. "What I'm trying to say is… I think it's time I joined your group."

The group's eyes widen; they gape at him, and Zuko feels small and vulnerable. Sokka's face is one of disbelief, Toph's is one of wary interest, and Aang's is a mix of the two. Katara's, however, is one of absolute revulsion, hatred etched on her pretty features.

"You," she growls, skulking toward him with a slender finger outstretched. "You think you can just march in here and convince us you're different? After all you've done to us? After you attacked our village, tried to capture Aang? After you kidnapped me, and almost killed us all numerous times? After you used my mother's necklace to hunt us down and chase us around the world?" Her big blue eyes fill with hot, angry tears. "After…after Ba Sing Se?"

Zuko is filled with excruciating pain at the last memory. "Look, I know I've done some awful things, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I tried to hurt you. I'm sorry I followed you around the world. I'm sorry about the North Pole, about Ba Sing Se, and I'm sorry I sent that assassin after you!"

"Wait!" Sokka screeches. "You sent Combustion Man after us?"

Zuko flinches. "Well, that's not his name, but…"

"GET OUT!" yells Katara, and Sokka nods vigorously.

With desperation, Zuko looks to Aang. "Please," he implores. "All I want is your acceptance."

"I'm sorry, Zuko," Aang replies coldly. "But there's no way we can trust you after all you've done."

Zuko gulps down his pain, the burning sensation in his throat and behind his eyes. "Fine," he manages. "If you won't accept me as a friend, maybe you'll accept me as a prisoner." He kneels submissively, offering his hands up to be bound.

"No!" Katara yells. "We won't!"

And before Zuko realizes what's happening, he is painfully knocked sideways by a strong jet of freezing water. Shivering and scraped, he glances up at the waterbender through dark dripping bangs.

She stands over him, beautiful and powerful and untamable and harsh, just like the sea, and it is a stormy ocean Zuko, a firebender drowning in it all, finds in her wide eyes. All of a sudden, wildly and impossibly, he feels his heart return to him again. It's timid and faint and scarred but still there, beating weakly but quickly beneath his bruised ribcage. It is back because of this strong and beautiful waterbender, but also because miles away in a warmongering land too blind to see the fire it's lit to itself, a girl he can no longer call his has released the broken pieces of it in disgust. The tears she will never let anyone see spill onto the parchment he sent for her, and this is almost enough to break Zuko's newly returned heart a second time, if this waterbender doesn't do it first.

"Get. Out." she hisses, and Zuko obeys, head bowed and despairing, wondering why the girl his struggling heart has decided to cling in order to recuperate has to be the one that wants to kill him.

* * *

><p>He makes camp in the woods, lit afire with the sunset, near the cliffs, and tries to come up with what he can do, where he can possibly go, who would dare take him. He wastes away in agonized thought, sinking deeper and deeper into the depths of self-pity, as sepulchral night falls, lit only by the campfire he detests with all of his being.<p>

It is late when he hears the crack of a branch.

"Hello?" he calls out loudly. No answer. "Who's there?" Still nothing. An alarm goes off in Zuko's head, and, just to be safe, he sends a low wall of fire in the direction of the noise.

"Ouch!" wails a familiar voice, and Zuko's mood, if possible, plummets. "_You burned my feet_!"

Toph, oh, Spirits, Toph. He races in the direction of her voice, calling a name foreign to his lips.

"Get away from me!" she snaps, clawing at the dirt in effort to get away.

"Please, let me help you! It was an accident, believe me! Please, come back! I have a salve that might help your burns!"

But she's gone, and so is his last chance.

In his anger, he snuffs the fire out in a wisp of smoke, and falls asleep to the deafening and unmistakable sound of his failure and the feel of his stinging tears behind his eyelids. For the guilty can always somehow find sleep, their escape from their consciences laying prey to them.

* * *

><p>Dawn breaks, somehow, and he is grudgingly awoken by the sound of trouble. Isn't that always the case? This time, however, it is from the direction of the Western Air Temple-the sound of sonic booms, raw, explosive firepower, and guiltless assassination.<p>

No matter how fast he runs, he can't seem to get there fast enough. The man Sokka calls Combustion Man blows up the relics of the Avatar's past, as well as ruining the boy's chance at a future. The truth crumbles down on Zuko as the stone does the same around the frantically fighting group, joined by the three boys Zuko had caught a glimpse of the previous day.

_No, _he thinks wildly, scanning his brain for any sort of plan. _No!_

Before he knows it, before he can even think up a prayer-less plan, he finds himself attempting to shove the unmovable and deadly assassin, screaming orders as if he is still a prince.

"_Stop! _I won't pay you if you don't stop attacking!" The assassin knocks him sideways, and Zuko grabs at his stomach as if his guts will spill out. "All right! I'll pay you double to stop!"

But Combustion Man is no longer taking orders from Zuko. For what is he to him but a boy chasing the ghosts of his fast and fleeing those of his failures?

"Please!" Zuko screams, his voice raw, as the man causes another column of fire to erupt through the air and take out a wall. "Please, stop!" The ex-prince stumbles forward desperately, punches the unyielding assassin in the side, the man swatting at him like he is a troublesome fly. With a yell, Zuko shoots a pathetic accuse for a flame from his fingertips, but it is enough to distract Combustion Man for a spit second, a second long enough for him to pause in his next assault, a second long enough for Sokka's boomerang to catapult through the air and hit the man square on the tattoo of the eye on his forehead. The assault is cut short, and the air around Zuko explodes in fire, as does the ground beneath his feet.

Suddenly free-falling through the air, Zuko frantically grabs at smoke for something, anything, to hold on to. He finds it, by some miracle, and collapses on what used to be the cliff, pain flowing steadily through him, knowing Combustion Man was not as lucky. He hears the shouts of the others below as he slips into unconsciousness, and the last thing he sees before he blacks out, that thing he happens to grasp onto, are Katara's shocked blue eyes.

* * *

><p>"Is he okay? Did you heal him?" asks a voice as Zuko drifts back into his body, and, because of the pain, wishes he didn't.<p>

"If you could call what he was before okay, then he is," responds a colder feminine voice, and Zuko opens his eyes to discover an indifferent Katara staring down at him, as well as the rest of the Avatar's group.

"Well," Sokka says uncertainly after Zuko stumbles through a painful speech and apology, as if hoping someone will shut him up before the slippery words spill out. No one does. "Welcome to the group, Zuko."

* * *

><p>Zuko figures it must be the most awkward moment in history when Sokka shows him to his temporary room in the temple, and even more so when he catches the words the boy murmurs confidingly to Aang on the way out.<p>

Which is why he wasn't expecting a furious Katara to be inches away from his face when he turns around.

"Spirits!" he hisses at her in shock, but she'll have none of it.

"Now you listen to me right now, Zuko. You may have everyone else fooled, but you and I both know just how hard your loyalties are to come by. So I will tell you this one time, and one time only. If you take even one step backward, give me just one reason to think you might hurt Aang, you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore. Because I will end it. Permanently."

For a moment, Zuko is unsure whether the furious pickup in speed of his heart is of sheer terror or just a reaction to the close proximity of their faces. Wildly, absurdly, Zuko realizes how perfect the shape of her lips are, spewing poison at him, and for a second he considers kissing her. However, that would be hurting Aang, and her killing him would not be a good way to end such a productive and surprising day. When she leaves, deadly and silent, it takes all he is to hold himself together as she disappears down the hall.

And when he falls asleep, it is the first time in a long time that he does not dream. The first night of a new era when he does not wake up in a cold sweat, the only thing preventing the dreams from burning him to ashes being the slightly wavering stability of his mind. But Zuko knew that was over now; he had chosen his path- you just had to look one room over, to where the Avatar sleeps soundly, to know that yourself.


	8. Chapter 7: The Boiling Rock Part One

So this chapter is mostly Maiko, with the faintest splash of Zutara. Unlike the Day of Black Sun episodes, the Boiling Rock episodes had so much Zuko I had to split it into two, something I did not do with the other two part episode. So review, but, more importantly, enjoy! I should have chapter eight up soon!

* * *

><p>Zuko does not expect how quickly, but not without difficulty, he slips into their patterns, does not expect to memorize the once foreign and unfamiliar sound of their names, especially when he says the Avatar's birth name aloud for the very first time. The entire world leapt then, and he knew there was no taking it back, yet Aang did not seem to notice. He does not expect the pride he feels when Aang firebends, truly firebends, for the first time. He does not expect the inner joy the first time Katara ever laughs at him without being cruel, before she remembers she is supposed to hate him. He does expect, however, the advice Sokka attempts to give him about the failure of a tea joke.<p>

"Zuko?" "I _know_ I said the joke wrong, Sokka." the teen answers testily from the evening-lit balcony, in no mood for more of Sokka's advice about comedy.

"No," Sokka amends. "I wasn't going to say that. I just… I had a question that I wanted to ask you."

Zuko makes a face, expecting something strange- or worse, personal. "Go for it, I guess. But do it quickly." Like ripping off a band aid.

"Not about you," Sokka clarifies, clearing his throat. "About the Fire Nation." Zuko looks at him curiously. "What did you want to know?"

"Well, I was wondering where they would keep their high security prisoners."

"As in the rest of the invasion?"

Sokka gapes. "How did you-"

"I had a feeling someone would ask eventually."

Sokka waits for Zuko to say something more. He doesn't.

"And?"

Zuko sighs. "It's not good."

Sokka looks out over the cliff, then back to him, sorrow decomposing his expression. "It's my dad."

Zuko is surprised, how hard the envy for a real father is to banish- not nearly as easy as when the man he once called his own father banished him. He cannot look the boy, a mere year younger but with more care for his father than Zuko could ever gain, in the hopeful silver-blue eyes as he speaks the unbearable words. "My guess is…they were taken to the Boiling Rock."

"What's that?"

"It's a huge Fire Nation prison, and it's inescapable. It's surrounded by water so hot it boils, and the slightest touch in the wrong spot could kill you. It's not far from here; you guys actually flew right over it." Then he sees the mad glint of desperation in Sokka's eyes, and adds hastily, "Sokka, don't even try."

"Try what?" the other teen quips, half-heartedly faking a yawn. "I wasn't going to try _anything_. Well, I'm tired. I think I'll get some rest. Thanks, Zuko. Just knowing makes me feel better."

Zuko watches him suspiciously as he walks away. "Yeah." he says under his breath. "I'll bet it does."

So, that night, Zuko places his sleeping back close to Sokka's and does all he can not to fall asleep; it is not in vain. Sokka rises stealthily when he is almost positive the others were asleep, and begins to gather the most valuable of his things. With the smallest of coy smiles lurking on his lips, Zuko makes his way to the bison when the boy's back is turned.

"Going somewhere?" he asks Sokka from the saddle as he climbs up, nearly scaring him off the bison.

"Fine," Sokka snaps. "You caught me. I'm going to rescue my dad. Are you happy now?"

Zuko raises his eyebrows. "I'm never happy."

"Well…" Sokka grasps at straws. "I'm going, and there is no way you can stop me."

Both Sokka and Zuko know fully well Zuko could beat him in a fight, but neither addresses this. Instead, Zuko presses him more. "And how are you going to get there? On Appa? Last time I checked, prisons don't have bison day care centers." He gets a bit of satisfaction on the tangible hesitation that seeps into the night air. "We'll take my war balloon. Start writing a note to Aang and-" he stops himself before he says Katara's name. "and the rest. Tell them we're off to get…"

"Meat!"

"What?"

"It's just… I'm a meat guy. They know I don't kid around about it. So we should be clear for a few days."

Zuko nods his approval. "Okay," he says. "Okay."

Although he doubts things will be.

* * *

><p>In the air, the Western Air Temple fading quickly from view behind them, Sokka attempts to start a conversation, much to Zuko's dismay. It is not long, however, that the discussion turns to girls. After all, they are teenage boys- just teenage boys that have been forced to grow up faster than usual, forced to fit into their father's armor before they should've.<p>

"You mean you didn't leave behind anyone you cared about?"

"Well, I did have a girlfriend." The name is pain on his tongue. "Mai."

Sokka grins, raising his eyebrows. "That gloomy girl who sighs a lot?"

Zuko almost laughs, but he doesn't, feels incapable. "Yeah. Everything was happening so quickly and undeniably, so dangerously, then. I couldn't drag her into it."

Sokka nods knowingly, then confides, "My first girlfriend turned into the moon."

Zuko remembers the beautiful Water Tribe princess with the strange white hair, and looks at the boy sympathetically. "That's rough, buddy." "I felt so bad; I was supposed to protect her, you know? And then, to make matters worse, just when I was starting to get over it, Suki, this other girl I really liked got captured. By your sister. Azula. I don't even know if she's still alive. I mean, I feel like I'd just _know_ if she was gone- like my heart would stop beating, too."

"You'd be surprised what the, uh, the heart can, um, withstand." He flinches; he's never been good at discussing his feelings. "Leaving Mai behind was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I thought I'd be broken forever."

"So how'd you cope?" Sokka's voice is not so amiable anymore as he jumps to a conclusion that Zuko has been dreading. He looks up to find Sokka's eyes on him, as if he knows exactly who his heart latched onto in order to heal. The stare, suddenly as cold as the tribal village from which he hails, challenges Zuko to say the word aloud, to utter Katara's name to one of the very boys that will destroy him for speaking it. Though Zuko is not one to back down from a challenge, he thinks he'll have to sit this one out, as he is not sure the answer Sokka is expecting is even the right one.

"I'm not sure. I'm still working on it," he admits truthfully, and is relieved beyond measure when the steam of the volcano approaches. "There it is! The Boiling Rock."

It is magnificent in all the wrong ways- a walled-in island within a deep, boiling lake, steam gushing from its depths. Two precarious gondolas brings prisoners and guards from the dangerous basin to the unforgiving stone walls of the Fire Nation jail- to hell and back again.

"It's remarkable," Sokka agrees, but Zuko sees the sadness in his eyes and knows part of the boy is kept in this prison as well. "And the air current should lead us straight to the island."

The war balloon creeps across the volcano's threshold and is soon enveloped by thick white steam; beads of sweat form on the boys' creased brows, and the heat slithers around them, suffocating with its unbreakable chokehold. Struggling for evasive breath, Zuko attempts to bend the heat out of the air without any success. He feels like he is in one of his uncle's prized tea pots, sweltering and billowing steam, and thanks the Spirits that Iroh is not in the Boiling Rock as well, that his father needed to keep his treacherous brother close at hand.

Suddenly the balloon pitches forward violently, and Zuko desperately snatches the basket as they begin to tumble in an inevitable downward spiral.

"What's happening?" he yells to his companion.

"The balloon isn't suspending us anymore because the air inside is just as hot as the air around us!"

"Should I try and make it hotter?" Zuko asks loudly as the balloon draws lower and the temperature higher.

"No, I don't think it will work!" "So what are we going to do?"

Sokka looks to Zuko helplessly. "Crash landing?"

And he means it to the absolute essence of the word. The balloon collides with the unforgiving rock at full, dangerous speed, skidding across the damp jagged surface and collapsing in a defeated heap on the lake's shore. Zuko thrashes against the canvas trapping him in its folds and fights his way out, hands smoldering, chest heaving, eyes wild; Sokka is close behind, and in roughly the same condition- bruised and cut in places but mostly unhurt on the whole.

"It's a miracle we made it out of there," Zuko gasps, doubled over.

"I had a feeling the balloon would be a one way trip."

Zuko looks up at the young warrior from the Water Tribe in outrage and general disbelief. "What? You mean you knew this was going to happen and you wanted to come anyway?"

Sokka avoids the penetrating amber eyes. "Yeah. But what else could I do? We'll find a way out of here. But first, we find my dad."

* * *

><p>"I feel like I'm wearing a tin can," Sokka gripes, and Zuko rolls his eyes, slipping the helmet of his prison guard disguise on. "Why don't you Fire guys build better armor?"<p>

"What do you suggest?" Zuko snaps irritably. "Something soft and light and able to be penetrated by swords and the elements?" He hears a sound echoing down the metal walls, and holds a finger to his lips to silence his accomplice. "Someone's coming. Act natural. Pretend like you belong, and you will."

A man in an outfit identical to theirs appears down the hall. "Guards, come quickly! There's a scuffle in the prison yard!"

Sokka and Zuko look at each other, and the latter is frustrated he cannot see the other boy's expression. "Come on," he says, and drags Sokka by the shoulder in the direction the other guard sped off in. Their footsteps are metallic echoes, their shallow breaths those of liars and drowning men. The hall yawns wide into a gaping maw of an entrance, emptying into the prison yard, where a crowd has gathered around two men that circle each other like scavengers. Onlookers invade every available space, smelling of failure and hopelessness with despair swimming in their bloodshot eyes. Zuko sucks in anxious gasps as Sokka searches the faces of prisoners and guards alike, the desperate fire in his eyes flaring and dimming with each new prospect. There are many brothers and sons and fathers, but not one is the quarry the boys seek. Zuko has an undeniable sinking feeling spreading its roots in his stomach, and turns his attention to the two quarrelling men, a formidable, helmet-less guard and a bulky prisoner with clenched fists, as he and Sokka push their way to the front of the crowd.

"Hear that?" the guard yells to those watching. "Chit Sang wants to know what he's done! Isn't that cute?" He looks behind him at Sokka, who says nothing. "I said, 'Isn't that cute?'."

Sokka's eyes grow large, and Zuko nudges him to provoke a response. "Er, yes." he responds stiffly. "Very cute. Sir."

The guard rolls his eyes and looks back to the prisoner, Chit Sang. "You didn't bow when I walked by, Chit Sang."

"What?" the man replies in a stunned, gravelly voice. "That's not a prison rule. I'm going back to my cell."

The guard grins wickedly, and, while Chit Sang's back is turned, summons a flickering orange tongue of hellish flame. With a roar, he forces it, twisting and burning, towards the prisoner's retreating back. The other man spins around, shocked, and as a reflex he catches the flame and sends it back at the guard.

"You just broke a prison rule, Chit Sang. You know bending is not tolerated for prisoners." He looks back, and his eyes pass from a relieved Zuko to Sokka. "You! Help me take this jail scum to the Cooler."

Zuko, blood frozen in his veins, has to literally force a frightened Sokka forward. "We'll meet up here in an hour," he promises in a hiss as Sokka, wobbling, follows Chit Sang and the guard through the prison yard and down a different hall.

Suddenly hit with that familiar feeling, of being lost and alone in the world, Zuko glances around in hopes of picking up what to do from the other guards. Two, a fierce-looking woman and a man with a stubbly beard, glance at each other and point to the sky, eyebrows raised. An uncertain Zuko follows them at a distance from the yard and through the halls to a room that appears to be a kind of lounge. A bedraggled cook slops food into bowls, and a few guards are scattered around in uncomfortable wooden seats.

"Hey, new guy!" the man with the stubbly beard calls over to Zuko. "Why don't you relax a second? I know it's a prison rule to always have your helmet on, but this is the lounge!"

"But what if someone should strike me on the head?" Zuko inquires nervously, causing the guard and the others at his table to snort with laughter.

"Give him some time, Ruan," the woman says. "He'll loosen up."

Zuko gulps, then plunges into the question burning its syllables onto his tongue. "Can I ask you veterans a question about the prison?"

The woman laughs loudly. "No, you can't date the female guards."

The man next to her smiles and shakes his head. "Trust me," he tells Zuko conspiratorially, "you don't want to."

"No," Zuko replies, forcing a laugh that catches sourly in his throat. "I was wondering if you had any Water Tribe prisoners."

"Water Tribe?" Ruan asks, scratching his head. "Do we?"

"I don't think so," replies the other man, and something in Zuko plummets to the floor with a silent yet irreparable crash, hope colliding irrevocably with truth. In order to mask his disappointment and slight fury, he turns abruptly and snatches a tray of slop from the cook. Brain whizzing with horror and bewilderment and schemes for escape, Zuko sits alone at a table and picks at his food without eating.

"Hey, buddy," the second man calls out boisterously from across the room. "You gonna eat through your helmet?"

"No."

"Just take it off, man," the other man, Ruan, says tiredly.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Zuko insists, and a grin breaks through the second man's face like the sun bursting through the clouds.

"Why? Are you ashamed of how ugly you are, new guy? Is that why your parents shipped you out here so young, so you couldn't escape?" He laughs cruelly, then continues with the words that are the last straws for Zuko, the last thread pulled in an unraveling sweater. "Or do you just have an embarrassing scar from where they burned you?"

With gritted teeth and an angry snarl poised on his lips beneath the metal of his helmet, Zuko pushes out of his seat with a clatter and skulks out of the room. If only those guards knew just who they were speaking to, knew just who they were dealing with- Zuko of the Fire Nation, son of their feared ruler, ally of their most esteemed foe, and master of the crackling flames they think obey them, a thought Zuko can snuff out like a feeble candle in an erumpent gale. They'd be sorry if only they knew who he was, now that Zuko knows the answer himself.

* * *

><p>"Zuko?" inquires tentative but familiar voice, and Zuko looks, relieved, over to the mask that hides Sokka's flushed and anxious face. He joins his companion at the rail overlooking the dismal prison yard.<p>

"Yeah," he replies, taking a breath. "Look, Sokka, I asked around the prison. No one knows of any Water Tribe prisoners, or any from the invasion."

Zuko cannot see it but knows just how wide Sokka's eyes must be. "What? No, that can't be!" His voice is high and cracking, nervous and angry. "You mean all this was for _nothing_? It was all a complete waste?"

"I don't-"

"I risked both of our lives for nothing? Oh, Spirits, I don't _believe_ this! Why does the universe hate me?"

Zuko makes a face, and racks his brain for something to say. Something Uncle would say….

"You know, Sokka, sometimes life is…like a cloud. Yeah, a cloud. There's a dark side, and a light side. With a silver lining in between. Like, um, a silver sandwich. So, when things seem dark, just… Sometimes you just have to, er, take a bite out of the silver sandwich."

Sokka straightens up suddenly. "Maybe this wasn't a complete waste."

"You mean what I said worked?" asks Zuko in disbelief.

"No, what you said makes absolutely no sense at all. But look, in the prison yard! It's Suki!"

* * *

><p>"Stay out here and keep watch," Sokka instructs, slipping inside the girl's, Suki's, cell. Zuko leans against the iron door, worriedly craning his neck from side to side.<p>

"Make it quick," he hisses through the door, but Zuko knows that if it were Mai in there, he'd take all the time he could get, too.

He hears a startled exchange of murmured words and a several muffled, rapid movements, and wonders wildly if they are embracing. Slightly uncomfortable, he doesn't dare look in to see. Then, to his horror, the fierce female guard he'd met earlier struts importantly down the hall; panicking, he raps on the door thrice.

"Incoming," he whispers.

The guard approaches him with a scowl. "Move aside. I need to get into that cell."

"Wait," Zuko cautions, a spur of the moment lie. "The lights are out. The prisoner could sneak up and attack you."

The guards smiles, a cocky yet thin, and hardly kind smirk. "I'm more than capable. Now move." "No, wait-" But she's already pushing past him, reaching for the handle, about to blow everything Sokka and Zuko have worked for.

"Stop!" Zuko yells, and, in one, last desperate attempt, pushes the guard against the wall.

"_What are you doing?"_ shrieks the guard furiously. "Help! Someone help!" She catches sight of Sokka, whose slipped out of thee cell mere seconds too late. "Guard! Help! I think he's an imposter!"

Zuko glances up at his comrade frenziedly, trying to convey the message, as the female guard knocks his helmet off. _Go along with it or both or covers will be blown._

He gets the message, and obliges reluctantly. Zuko allows himself to be cuffed in chains and thrown into a darkness even his flickering flames cannot illuminate.

* * *

><p>"If it isn't <em>Prince<em> Zuko," a voice drawls, and the words are mocking. "To what do I owe this pleasure? Never thought I'd see you in here."

"How do you know me?" Zuko asks, throwing his hair out of his face to see the man who now enters his cell. Too tall and proud for his age, one apparent by the frown lines etched into the weathered face and streaks of gray in his shoulder-length hair, the warden gazes at his prisoner with utmost contempt.

"How could I not recognize _that_ face, Your _Majesty_? After all, you have stood before adoring thousands of _loyal_ citizens, have led the troops of Ba Sing Se to victory. The Fire Lord will be pleased to hear I am the one who has you in captive, in this place where you can no longer embarrass him by way of your…misguided adventures." The frown lines in the dark face deepen, and the warden steps closer. "Yet I have a more personal reason for paying you this visit, Zuko. _You broke my niece's heart._"

Zuko's eyes widen in shock. "You're Mai's uncle?"

The man nods slowly. "She's better off without you," he says nastily, and it kills Zuko inside to know that the words this bitter man speaks are nothing but the truth. The unbearable pang in his chest proves without a doubt that his heart will always bear the scars Mai has left there from trying to claw him back into a destiny he'd wrongly chosen for himself, instead of the one he was always meant for. Suddenly, he wants to follow the jagged paths carved into his heart back to her, to where she stands and speaks and breathes, where she exists, fuller and stronger and more beautiful than anything his memory can even begin to conjure.

"But before they come for you, Prince Zuko," the warden continues, folding his hand behind his back. "You're going to do me a favor."

* * *

><p>After two long hours of unendurable chores, including scrubbing the cells and mopping the floors, a beaten-down Zuko, still smarting from the image of a broken Mai burned into the back of his mind, is properly introduced to Suki. He supposes she is pretty, quite a few steps above plain, at least, with her light brown hair and big expressive eyes. He can see why Sokka likes her, for she is smart as a whip and capable of taking down great obstacles; the girl is a decent match for the sarcastic and excruciatingly unlucky Sokka, but not Zuko's type in the slightest.<p>

"Good!" Sokka chirps, oddly cheerful, appearing on the steps above them as Suki and Zuko mop the floors until they can catch gazes of their own pained and uncomfortable expressions. "I see you two have met!"

"We've met before," Suki retorts sourly.

Zuko's blood runs cold, knowing this can only lead to trouble. "We have?"

Suki glares at him. "Yup," she says. "You sort of burned down my village." Both Sokka, now next to them, and Zuko cringe, yet it is worse for Zuko because he cannot even pinpoint which village she is referring to. "Oh," he says in a small voice. "Sorry about that."

"Anyway," Sokka breaks in, and lowers his voice to a hoarse whisper. "I thought of a plan."

"You did?" Suki inquires, pleasantly surprised. "Yes, and if I do say so myself, it's pretty creative."

"Sorry, Sokka, but I don't care about creative as much as effective." This comment causes Suki to shoot Zuko another venomous look, even if Sokka just shrugs it off.

"The Cooler," he says simply, referring to the prison's freezing holding cell for firebenders.

"What about it?"

"Well, it's insulated right? To keep the cold in? That means it has to keep the heat out! It would make the perfect boat across the Boiling Lake! We can escape that way!"

"That's not a bad idea, Sokka," Zuko relents, "but the thing is, how are we going to get it out?"

"If I can get in on this, I can definitely help you with that," says a deep voice, and a hulk of a shadow drops from the steps above to the floor with a loud thud, startling the trio. Chit Sang smiles, a crooked half-moon of yellow teeth, and Zuko wishes instead they were stars, for he wants to wish on something that this last hope will prevail.

* * *

><p>"Watch where you're going!" Chit Sang snarls, shoving Zuko.<p>

"You watch where you're…shoving!"

"Are you asking for a fight, boy?" Chit Sang raises his fist, and Zuko, checking first to make sure guards are watching, firebends a weak jet of flame at him.

"All right, break it up!" yells Ruan, and he grabs Zuko's wrist. "It's the Cooler for you!"

Zuko holds back a smile as they lead him away. _Perfect._

* * *

><p>Inside,his breath unfurls in a burst of fog in the stale, shivering air. The bolts that hold the Cooler in place wear temporary lines into Zuko's fists, clenched so hard they've turned white.<p>

"All right, you!" a familiar voice yells, and Sokka's welcome face peers in at him. "Have you learned your lesson?"

Zuko smiles and discreetly reveals the displaced bolts to his partner in crime.

"Yes," he replies. "I have."

* * *

><p>That night, Sokka unlocks their cells silently and stealthily, knowing that their very lives may hang in the balance, and Zuko and Suki follow him out onto the steaming shore, to a blind spot between two watch towers and beneath the chosen Cooler.<p>

"Are you sure that's what they said? A gondola of war prisoners?" Suki presses Sokka in a whisper as they wait for Chit Sang to join them.

"Yes, I'm absolutely sure. It could be my dad." Zuko's brow creases. "But, Sokka, it might not be. If we wait for the morning and the gondola, our chance of escaping in the Cooler might be over. I mean, they'll have to use the Cooler again soon, right? They'll discover it's broken." Sokka's face falls, and he looks out wistfully across the broiling lake. "I know. And I don't want to risk your safeties for something that only _might _happen."

"But it's your father," Suki says softly.

"And it's also your call."

Sokka presses his fists into his temples, the minutes until dawn slipping away agonizingly quick. By the time Chit Sang arrives with his best friend and girlfriend, Sokka has still not chosen, much less disclosed his answer.

"I'll go along with whatever you think is right," Suki says quietly, and Zuko agrees silently and begrudgingly. He cannot leave without him.

Still, when the Cooler glides out across the bubbling water soundlessly, filled with hushed escapees, Zuko is extremely saddened to see it go.


	9. Chapter 8: The Boiling Rock Part Two

"My dad!" Sokka whispers excitedly as the prisoners in the gondola file somberly out. "He's here!"

Zuko and Suki exchange weary but very relieved glances behind Sokka's back. If they'd gambled on this for nothing, Zuko does not know what they would've done.

"I'll stay here and find out where they are going to put him," Sokka explains quickly, the words tumbling out too fast. "You two get back to the prison yard before anyone notices you're gone."

"Okay," Suki and Zuko say in unison, glancing at each other awkwardly and starting back. Sneaking surreptitiously back into the yard, they are quickly ushered into their cells, into imposing steel boxes that keep their spirits trapped inside. They don't say goodbye to each other, just break eye contact in a rather cold way.

Alone and silent in his cell once more, Zuko buries his head in his hands as the reality of his situation washes over him like waves, wearing him down repeatedly, unceasingly. How on earth will they get out of here? The prison is infested with merciless guards, proven to be inescapable, and the group can rely on no outside help.

"Zuko," hisses a voice after nearly two hours of sinking into self-pity. "You there?"

"Yeah, Sokka?"

"Listen, my father and I came up with a plan, its'-" He's interrupted by pair of guards demanding to be let in the cell.

"Can't I just rough him up a bit?" Zuko hears Sokka beg, and is astonished when they allow it. Sokka comes in alone with a sheepish grin, and pretends to punch a pillow while Zuko feigns pained groans.

"Okay, Zuko," Sokka whispers. "I'm short on time, so don't argue. We're going to escape on the gondola, so meet us in the prison yard in exactly in hour. That's when the distraction will take place, so don't be late." And without another word, he leaves the cell and is replaced by two sinister looking guards.

"Come on, you," the man says with a brutal smile, but what choice does Zuko have but to go with them and confront his fate, spiraling out of control?

* * *

><p>Tied to a chair in a dank, dark cell, Zuko glances up as the crack of light beneath he door widens into a full-fledged rectangle of amber light. She slips in, the visitor, the certain bringer of Zuko's fate.<p>

"Why am I here? I didn't do anything wrong!" he shouts.

"Come on, Zuko," the visitor says. "We all know that's a lie."

He recognizes the sound of her voice immediately, and then the outline of her profile, even in the shadows. The sharp angles of her face and body that still manage to be elegant and beautiful, the hair as dark as a crow's feathers but ten times as fine and silky, as well as the dark abyss of intriguing secrets known only to herself in her careful eyes. Mai. All of sudden, he is overwhelmed with pain and joy and utter disbelief.

"Zuko." she says bitterly, and every syllable, dripping with contempt, breaks him to delicate pieces, even if her face doesn't match it.

"How did you know I was here?" Her eyes narrow. "Because I know you so well." He stares at her for a second, and she relents slightly. "The warden's my uncle, you idiot. And the truth is, I guess I don't know you." She draws a scroll from her pocket, the letter he'd wrote to her, but she doesn't read out the words that ripped out her heart.

She says nothing else for a moment, but then, wounding him even more, cutting even deeper- "You're a traitor, Zuko, and you've hurt me. How could you? How could you turn on everyone you cared about? Can you even imagine what kind of pain you put me through, what scrutiny? They thought I knew where you went! At first, they even dared to think I went _with_ you! As if I would follow your footsteps. You betrayed me, Zuko. And you betrayed your family, your country." And for a few moments, her mask of an unreadable expression slips to the floor in a heap, though this is just enough time for her to lash out and strike him across the good side of his face. Heartbreak, Zuko learns quickly, is five-fingered, and the proof blossoms across his face in a dangerous pink shadow.

"Did it hurt as much as that?" he inquires weakly, and she clenches her fists, her eyes wet with inexplicable tears, a feature he's seen on Mai only in his nightmares.

"You can't even imagine," she replies tightly, scratching the rivulets away angrily. "And to think, you couldn't even tell me in person. You left a letter for me. A letter. And you couldn't even give _that_ to me in person. You gave it to Ty Lee_, _of all people. You could say goodbye to _her_, but not to me?" "I couldn't," Zuko tries to convince her, puts every ounce of care for her into his imploring. "I didn't want to say goodbye, Mai."

"Then why did you? Oh, right, let me guess. _Destiny_. Did you even consider that destiny is something you could shape, could choose for yourself?"

"I did do that" is all he can manage, and she steps back a foot as if she's been slapped herself, with a gasp that almost pains Zuko more than it does her.

"You didn't care at all, did you? How did that letter start again?" She reads the first words aloud: "_Dear Mai. I'm sorry you have to find out this way, but I'm leaving. _Hear that? _Dear. _As if I _really_ mean that much to you." She rolls it up in a crinkled ball and chucks it into his flinching face.

"But you do!" Zuko objects. "You don't understand; that was the hardest decision I've ever had to make!"

"And you chose _wrong_!"Mai shrieks, unhinged for perhaps the second time in her life, the other time being that night on the shores of Ember Island. The deadly stiletto flies from her sleeve so quickly Zuko cannot even react, not that he'd be able to do much, tied up in this chair. The blade imbeds itself in the wall behind him, not even an inch from his scarred face. And the fact that she's missed is even more unbelievable than the fact that she's actually thrown it.

For a moment, they both struggle under the stunned silence before Mai walks over stiffly to retrieve the weapon from where it was thrown. She reaches over him, close enough for him to feel the warmth of her sweet-scented breath in his ear, the heat emanating from her pale skin, but still so unbearably far away. A strand of black hair has fallen out of place, obscuring her vision, and Zuko wants to swipe it gently back behind the pearly shell of her ear; the aloofness and the cold has stolen back into her eyes, and that lone strand of hair is the only thing that screams something is wrong with her, with Mai, master of control and steadiness.

"You missed me" is all he can think to say, even though she hasn't. The evidence is at his feet, the two halves of his heart, sliced cleanly in two.

Her lips are a fine line as she turns her back on him and walks to the door of the cell. But, right before she slips out the door again, it opens and a frantic guard enters. Beneath the creaking of the door, Zuko hears Mai utter four quiet, meaningful words beneath her breath.

"More than you know."

"Lady Mai," the guard says breathlessly, "a riot is taking place in the prison yard! I'm here to protect you."

"I don't need protecting," Mai protests, yanking her arm away from the guard.

"Trust me," Zuko tells the man, resisting the alien desire to laugh. "She doesn't."

But then the words register. Riot? Is that the distraction Sokka mentioned? Eyes wide and heart racing, he makes a desperate bid at escape, firebending the guard and forcing him heart racing, he makes a desperate bid at escape, firebending the guard and forcing him away from the door. Bursting into the dimly lit hallway, he slams the door on the guard and Mai, locking it with deepest reluctance.

"Zuko!" screams Mai, pounding on the steel.

"I'm sorry," he apologizes. "Spirits, Mai, I'm sorry." But before she can reply, he's gone.

* * *

><p>"Zuko, where have you been?" Sokka scolds as Zuko locates him, Suki, Chit Sang, and Hakoda amongst the brawling prisoners and infuriated guards. "We almost left without you!"<p>

"How are we going to take the gondola?" Zuko demands. "The warden would never pity a hostage."

"Not if the warden _is _the hostage!"

"But how are we going to get the warden?"

"Hey, guys," Chit Sang interrupts, pointing upward with raised eyebrows. "I think your girlfriend's taking care of it."

Zuko scans the overhead landings for Suki's slight figure and finds her scaling the wall expertly, a determined look marring her features. In stunned silence, he, Hakoda, Chit Sang, and Sokka watch her single-handedly overtake the warden and tie him up.

"Guys!" she calls down happily above the roar of the other prisoners. "Let's go!"

Hakoda exhales as they take off running, weaving clumsily through the crowd. "That's some girl," he tells his son approvingly.

Zuko notices Sokka smile, somehow, through all they are enduring. "Tell me about it."

"Which way is the gondola?" Zuko asks Suki as they approach her, and she points down the hall to their left.

"That way, I think."

So as a surging, hopeful stampede, they charge down the halls bellowing guttural battle cries to intimidate any pursuers; luckily, there are none until they reach the platform, Chit Sang with a struggling warden slung over his back. As soon as the seven guards catch sight of their leader bound and gagged and in peril, they let the prisoners pass. Zuko can feel a contemptuous tension in the thick air as they push past them, Zuko shoving the lever that controls the gondola's movements downward as he does so. One of the guards is the man who'd mocked him in the lounge, and the two stare each other down with malicious and vicious snarling stares.

The gondola sways slightly under their weight as the group steps uncertainly on, and begins to move in a steady, rocking fashion. The ground beneath Zuko's feet is replaced by a boiling lake nearly one hundred feet below, a greedy roaring chasm of deadly waters.

"We're going to make it!" Suki shouts cheerily, peeping out the side, the length of the cable between them and the prison growing by the second, as well as their relief.

But suddenly, two figures appear near the guards, and Zuko knows them immediately, for they are two of the most renowned phantoms from the memories he'd rather forget. His sister, Azula, and childhood friend, Ty Lee. The latter jumps atop the opposite cable wire and darts agilely across it in their direction, gaining dangerously on the escapees in their much-too-slow gondola, while the former has blue jets of flame erupt from her feet to propel her forward, a stupendous grin plastered to her face.

"Don't jinx us," Zuko says to Suki, and the group prepares for the hazardous challenge that swiftly approaches. The two lean and lithe opponents land with dull thuds on the roof, and four of the five fugitives climb up to meet them, while Chit Sang is left to handle the warden.

"Hello, brother," taunts Azula as Zuko and Sokka, unsheathing his unique sword, prepare to face her. Somewhere on the other side of the gondola, Suki and Hakoda have already engaged in combat with Ty Lee, and it hurts Zuko to think that any of the three may get injured.

"You are no sister of mine," he replies darkly, and, quick as the lightning that is the source of her infamy, she launches a full-scale attack on the two boys. The world around Zuko is set ablaze with the blue flames spurting from his sister's fingertips, by the ambitious fire in her eyes that burns and consumes without remorse. Sokka's blade clangs emptily against the air and sometimes against armor, while firebending is consumed by the sibling's firebending. The footwork is nimble and a deadly dance, and the fourteen-year-old with the swirling black hair and cruel eyes, as well as the boy wielding a sharpened sword, are all Zuko can see; the hatred for his opponent courses through his veins, but all the while their conversations as innocent children, as a not yet broken family, replay endlessly through his preoccupied mind.

A deep and final shout sounds from beneath his feet, from the warden, and suddenly everyone on the gondola freezes in their deadly endeavors as Ty Lee, terror etched onto her pretty face, screams what is now obvious. "They're going to cut the line!"

Azula and Ty Lee leap backward onto the incoming gondola on the opposite cable, a chance for their escape, too good to be true. "This isn't over, brother!" Azula screeches, but something passes over her face as she glances down at the boiling water beneath them. "Or... maybe it is." A vengeful smile.

The last thing he can make out on their watching faces as the gondola takes them in the opposite direction is the regret emanating from Ty Lee, and the satisfaction in his sister's eyes, both at the realization Zuko is about to plummet to his end. The guards are already halfway through sawing the cable clean in two on the warden's final orders, and there is nothing Zuko nor anyone else can do to stop it. At least that's what he thinks, until the girl clad in black and dark red erupts from the prison, stilettos flying from her sleeves and glinting in the light as they pin the guards to the ground. She is almost impossible to distinguish to anyone else, but Zuko would know her anywhere.

"What are you doing?" he hears one dejected guard wail.

"Saving the jerk who dumped me" is Mai's loud reply, but the grateful silence afterwards is broken up by Azula's frustrated bellow as she and Ty Lee step onto the platform again, mere dots in the distance. Suddenly Zuko is paralyzed with fear. Azula wouldn't stand for this- her and Ty Lee would destroy Mai; as her best friends, they know her weaknesses, her strengths. Though she was a perilous tornado against anyone else, against his sister she does not stand a chance.

"Mai," he whispers, but Sokka and Hakoda are dragging him off the gondola, which has finally reach the other shore. His view of the scene becomes obscured, but he is almost glad- he does not want to see Mai die for him.

"Come on, Zuko," Sokka pleads, and he allows himself to be led away from the prison and towards Azula's ride, an airship, looming ominously above them. He doesn't feel any emotion at first as they stumble up the boarding plank, beginning to hijack it; he supposes Mai still has his heart, broken and bloody, after all, and the thought of her resembling it is almost too much for him to take. All of a sudden the numbness breaks like a broken dam.

"No, no, no!" he murmurs despairingly, burying his face in his shaking hands.

"It's okay, look, she'll be fine." Sokka promises the impossible clumsily and unconvincingly, patting his friend's back, not knowing what else to do. Zuko just shrugs him off. They've escaped, but a part of him will always be kept captive in that jail. Sokka looks up at his father, who stands at the controls of the airship. "Set our course for the Western Air Temple. For home."

However, if this request for home would be made true for Zuko, he'd have to trek all the way back to the Boiling Rock and fall disbelievingly at the still feet of a girl surely killed by his own sister's fire, the flames that were just no match for the ones in Mai and Zuko that refused to be extinguished. Until. The. Very. End.


	10. Chapter 9: The Southern Raiders

Pretty sure this is the longest chapter so far, but a lot of it is dialogue. Sorry for writing such a Zutarian chapter, but this was the episode for it. I actually like Zutara, but I like Maiko, too. Hence staying canon and throwing crap like these chapters in. Review, please!

* * *

><p>It seems like time bleeds by, for the sun rises and the sun sets, but for Zuko nothing seems quite real. He feels like he is walking underwater, in slow motion and steadily running out of oxygen. At first, not even the Avatar's progress in bending and growing confidence, nor the outright companionship of the others, save one testy waterbender, can color a world stained gray. Nothing breaks through until he awakes beneath the Air Temple's roof to find the world collapsing around them. Stone quakes and falls. Dust invades the air and blinds the wide eyes. Explosions sound somewhere in the distance, and Aang, trying to bend the air clear again, yells for everyone to evacuate. Zuko hears a scream a mere five feet away, and dives down to knock Katara out of the way of a falling boulder. He pins her beneath him painfully, and they both grimace.<p>

"What are you _doing_?" she growls, her hair in her eyes and dust covering her rumpled clothes.

"Saving your life!" Zuko retorts loudly, unable to believe how insolent she is being, today and every other.

"Okay, I'm saved, you can get off of me now!" She shoves him away and runs off towards the place where she can hear Sokka calling her name, kicking up dust. He watches her go, half angry and half plain confused. Suddenly clammy hands clamp down on his arm, desperate to know others exist in the haze. Aang, who's bending is becoming close to futile as he puts the safety of his friends first. "Why is this happening?" he asks Zuko, squinting, as they hobble towards the silhouette of the bison. Then it hits Zuko, hard, and he suddenly wants nothing more to confront the reason for the demolition.

"I think I know," he replies darkly, and rips his arm away from Aang as he takes off for the balcony. Just as he suspected, he finds Azula standing triumphant on the canvas roof of a airship, smirk prominent.

"Hello, brother!"

"What are you doing here?" Zuko demands, his hair whipping around his scarred face in the wind.

"You mean you haven't guessed?" Azula jeers. "I'm about to celebrate becoming an only child!" An line of jagged electricity spirals from her fingertips and hits the ceiling above him; Zuko has to leap out of the way of the tumbling structure and through the air, clawing his way onto Azula's airship. Despite the fact that she is his little sister, she is the reason Mai is gone, and he can never forgive her for that. He _wants_ her to get hurt.

Azula grins as if she can read his thoughts and jumps backward easily as a column of flame assaults her and dissolves into embers at her command. "Now, Zuko, Mai and Ty Lee's downfall is no one's fault but your own."

Is it just his imagination, or does she hesitate at the names, grow angrier at the memory? And what does Ty Lee have to do with anything? Did she betray Azula as well? Zuko recalls the remorseful look on the acrobat's face as she realized Zuko was going to fall to his death at the Boiling Rock.

Fueled by her fury, Azula swirls around and shoots scorching blue fire from every limb of her nimble body before her feet hit the ground again. Zuko meets it with a wall of fire of his own, and the cloudy sky burns white before the force of the impact sends them both tumbling backwards. Zuko's fingernails scratch at the canvas but it is of no use- he's falling helplessly through the foggy air, the rubble of Aang's civilization following his descent.

Then, like a miracle, fingernails dig into his wrist and he is yanked downward onto the safety of Appa's saddle. Katara, his rescuer, has nothing to say but "Now we're even, got it?" Zuko doesn't even dignify her angry words with a thank-you, just searches the wreckage of the sky for his sister. He finds her falling form dangerously near the cliff side, and suddenly he is snatched by an irrational fear.

"She's… she's not going to make it," he manages in a hushed voice. But why should he even care? She of all people deserves it, does she not? Suddenly he is overwhelmed by the memory of her as a mere infant, before she was severed into so many pieces by yearning for the impossible love of her father. _"_Zuzu!" she shrieks, snatching the two-year-old's fingers, and present-day Zuko can almost feel the warmth of her hand in his even now, yanking on his as she falls to her doom. She may be terrible and awful, but deep down, do they not share the same blood in their veins? Does she not possess a bit of resemblance to his beloved mother? Everyone in the saddle senses him tense up until Azula pulls out her dagger and digs it into the rock, suspending her fall. Her hair whips around her like a storm and she is once again composed, and every ounce of pity Zuko has for her is gone in that single instant. "Of course she did."

When the bison is far enough away from the ruined Air Temple, Zuko realizes the saddle is empty of five people. "Where's Hakoda?" he questions the others- Aang, Katara, Toph, Sokka, and Suki. "Where's Haru, and Teo, and-"

"They escaped out the tunnel in the temple," Katara interrupts. "We came out on Appa to find you." Poison seeps through the syllables, but Zuko ignores it.

"So are we meeting up with them?"

Aang shakes his head, and answers somberly, "Eventually. But not anytime too soon."

"I'm sorry," Zuko apologizes. "I shouldn't have gone after her like that."

"No, it's okay." Sokka interjects, for he, after seeing Azula prepare to battle Mai, knows why he did it. "You gave the others the distraction they needed to get out unscathed. Us, too."

"Appa doesn't like underground tunnels, anyway," supplies Aang, and Zuko smiles slightly, the first time since the Boiling Rock.

"So where are we going?" he asks the Avatar.

"I thought we'd go camping in the woods," he says bitter sweetly. "For old time's sake."

* * *

><p>"Who would of thought?" Sokka asks boisterously, his face glowing from the campfire Zuko had Aang start in their forest campsite. "After all he's done, who could predict that today he'd be our hero? Here's to Zuko!" He holds up a cup filled with nothing but lukewarm water.<p>

"To Zuko!" the others cheer, all except Katara, who abstains rather noticeably.

"This is just like old times!" Sokka breathes, sprawling back in the lush green grass beneath the black abyss of night summer sky. Suki playfully pulls some blades of grass up and sprinkles them on his face.

Zuko, caught in the euphoria of survival and the toasting, offers jokingly, "If you really want it to feel like old times, I could, uh, I could run around and try to capture you." This causes Toph, Aang, Sokka, and Suki to burst into laughter, and the stars, to Zuko, shine a bit brighter.

"Oh yeah," Katara pipes up sarcastically, the dancing flames casting her face in a wicked shadow. "Ha ha." She stands up abruptly, excusing herself to venture into the thicket, which eventually leads out onto the shore.

"What's with her?" Sokka asks.

"I don't know," Zuko replies quietly, and stands up to follow her without another word.

"What's with him?" he hears Sokka inquire, exasperated, as he disappears into the trees, following the sound of the crashing waves to where Katara stands, solemn and beautiful and bathed in silver moonlight, as she gazes out at the water.

"What is it with you?" Zuko questions, coming up behind her. "Everyone else seems to trust me now!"

"Oh, everyone trusts you now?" There is utter fury in her voice a she spins around to face him, grasping at her mother's necklace. "I was the first one to trust you, back in Ba Sing Se, remember?"

Zuko remembers all too well. "How am I supposed to change your mind?"

"Gee, I don't know. How about you rebuild every village you burned down? How about you chase the Fire Nation out of the Impenetrable City? How about you stop this war your people started? How about you bring my mother back?" The necklace is rubbed between her fingers, which Zuko notices pointedly. Without giving him time for another response, she leaves him alone on the cliff overlooking the shore to contemplate the severity of her words. Instead, an idea hits him.

* * *

><p>A few hours later, Zuko collapses onto a rock in front of Katara's silent tent after a rather embarrassing talk with a half-naked Sokka about their mother. He's concluded that, somehow, Katara has pinned the blame for her mother's death on Zuko, and he is determined to make it stop, even if it means staying outside her tent all night. The minutes bleed together and the blackness fades to the supple pink fingers of the dawn that stretch across the horizon's threshold, bringing Katara out as well. She emerges from the canvas flap just as the birds begin twittering and yawns prettily, stretching her arms over her head before noticing Zuko slumped on the boulder. She narrows her eyes.<p>

"Have you been out here all night?"

"Yes."

She shakes her head, shrugs her shoulders. "And _why_?"

Zuko takes a breath, and stares her right in the eyes boldly. "I think I know who killed your mother. And I'm going to help you find him."

* * *

><p>"I really don't think this is necessary," Aang tries to dissuade the two from going after the Southern Raiders, but it is no use. Katara is silent but determined, a strange expression stealing over her ever since Zuko said the words that morning.<p>

Sokka stands back some feet, sulking ever since Katara wounded him with the words "You didn't love her like I did" when he agreed with Aang. His eyes find Zuko's pleadingly but don't even begin to change his mind.

"Listen, Aang," Zuko says to the boy, lowering his voice as Katara, clad in slimming black, climbs effortlessly onto the bison. "I really think this will be good for her."

"I disagree. The monks always used to tell me that violence was not the answer."

"But this isn't Air Nomad preschool," Zuko argues. "This is Katara confronting the man who took away a major aspect of her life. I, of all people, should know that."

"I know, Zuko, but this doesn't seem like closure. This seems like revenge. And I'm not sure that's okay, or even safe."

"We'll be fine. I won't let anything happen to her, I promise."

Aang nods, as if he needed to hear this, but then denies his agreement verbally. "I'm not worried about Katara. I'm worried about the man she's after."

Zuko smiles ruefully and glances surreptitiously up at the waterbender, quiet and lethal on the saddle. "I'm afraid you have reason to be." He starts to clamor up the bison, but Aang grabs the back of his shirt.

"Zuko?" he whispers anxiously.

"Yeah?"

"Don't let her turn into someone else."

"I think she's going to find herself, instead." And then, before Aang or Sokka can object, he sits on the bison's saddle and signals to Katara, who snaps, "Yip yip" in a tight voice. The bison takes off into the late amber afternoon sky, leaving the monk and his friends far behind them, as well as their voice of reason. The sea passes beneath them and the sun continues its dance across the sky, leaving them in the tired dusk, marking the passage of time.

Katara's hands are clenching the reins so hard her knuckles have turned white, white as the foam of the silver-crested waves beneath them. Her eyes are focused, straight ahead and piercing, and her lips are a thin trace of an ominous vow.

"Where did you say these guys would be located?" The question is a tense hiss.

Zuko gives her the location again, then inquires, "Are you okay?"

"What do you care?"

"I care about your well-being, Katara."

The girl scoffs, tossing a lock of hair from her face. "Yeah. Sure."

"I do."

"Then prove it."

"How?"

Katara looks back at him sharply, and he notices for the first time the bruise-like circles beneath her bloodshot eyes. "Help me kill this man, Zuko." The words chill him to the breaking bone, and he remembers just how dangerous the ultimate rawness of a human being can be, the limits a person a person will achieve to settle the voices screaming in their heads. And he has never seen a girl so raw, so powerful and beautiful and chilling, than the one that sits in front of him now, asking him to help her take the life of a man who ripped away part of her own.

"Katara, why don't you let me direct Appa for a while?" he offers gently, rising from his seat and walking slowly towards her, avoiding her demand.

"Promise me you'll help give this man what he deserves."

"Katara, just let me drive." He attempts to yank the reins from her palms, but she holds tight.

"_Promise me_."

Zuko stops dead and looks up at her curiously, something inside him curling up into a ball at her fierceness, absent of humanity. But he assures her anyway. "I'll do whatever you need me to, Katara." The second he finishes the words, the gleaming full moon slips out from behind the swirling clouds, a magnificent orb that will only strengthen Katara's power and the danger in her Zuko fears she is not aware of.

"Look," he whispers, pointing ahead to a bulking shape in the darkness. The watch tower that will tell them the location of the Southern Raiders. As soon as they come within a hundred yards, Katara releases Appa's reins and leaps inexplicably off the bison, bending the water to catch her as she plummets fearlessly into it. Zuko watches, stunned, as she disappears within the slick black water and erupts out of it again, perfectly dry, fingers of water swirling around her and suspending her at least five feet above the rest of the sea.

"Well come on!" she snaps at him.

Zuko makes a face, and, pinching his nose, jumps off the bison as well, legs flailing wildly. The cold water encompasses him as he drops like a stone, and for a moment he doesn't know which way is up, for each direction is a dark void of suffocating pressure. He eventually kicks his way to the surface however, gasping for air and just a little ticked off that Katara didn't help him with her bending; instead she is freezing the water beneath her in a slippery island. Zuko grips the ice between his fingers and hauls himself upward, dripping and sucking in oxygen.

"Thanks for that," he growls, but Katara doesn't reply, only moves the block of ice forward towards the fort stealthily, drawing up her black hood to conceal her stormy face that seeks revenge on this night. Zuko follows suit.

"Hey!" a voice yells from atop the stone wall rising above them, but before anyone can assist the startled guard Zuko has shot fire from his fists to force him backward, giving Katara room to bend the block of ice high enough for them to breach the tower's walls and slip through its hallway. They open the door at the hall's end sneakily and find a young woman at a desk, writing a letter intently. Katara, with a wicked smile, bends the ink all over the parchment, startling her into standing and leaving out the other door to retrieve another piece. Zuko hurriedly dashes down and finds the file for the Southern Raiders, snatching it and pin-pointing the location.

"There!" he says triumphantly. "They are patrolling the edge of Whale-Tail island."

* * *

><p>The bobbing ship is silent, and it doesn't seem to know what hits it until the tidal wave sweeps up and knocks the patrolling guards off their feet. Katara and Zuko race by, heart pounding in their chests but still ignored completely.<p>

They come across three other guards on their way down the red-carpeted hallways of the Southern Raiders' ship, but Katara deals with them single-handedly and easily, the full moon empowering her in a way that is almost terrifying. She bursts through the door that hides their leader with a deadly intention, and the man stares up at her, beautiful and frightening, startled and frozen like a deer in the headlights.

"Who are you?" he asks.

Then, to Zuko's horror, the man convulses violently and jerks to the right, slamming against the wall, and it takes a few seconds before Zuko realizes that the breathless Katara is the reason for it. She has literally bended a person, and the thought of having his body arrested and moved against is control makes him shudder. Katara, however, has her mind on other things.

"You're going to pay!" she howls wretchedly at the man.

"Please, spare me," he gasps. "I have done nothing!"

"You've done _nothing_?" Katara explodes, her fists clenched. "You call raiding my village of the Southern Water Tribe and killing my mother _nothing?_"

"I've never raided a Water Tribe village while I was in command, please, listen to me!" The man's face is twisted into a desperate plea.

"No! Look me in the eyes and tell me you don't remember! You're worthless and-" She suddenly stops dead and stumbles backward. The man sinks to the floor, back in control of himself but still unbearably weakened.

"Katara, what is it?" Zuko demands, reaching out to steady her.

"He's…he's not the man."

"What do you mean he's not?"

"I've seen the man who killed my mother, and this isn't him."

Zuko's jaw almost drops, but instead he turns to the man and shoves him against the wall again, slamming his fist almost in inch from his face for effect. "Who was the leader before you?"

"B-b-before me?" the man stutters. "That w-was Yon Rha. He retired four years ago."

"Where is he now?"

"Living with his m-mother on an island, not to f-far to the east of here."

Nodding curtly, Katara spins around and departs from the room. Zuko, confused, follows, to find Katara already on Appa and waiting for him with her jaw set, her hands twitching with the power the moon bestows. His thoughts turn again to her dreaded blood bending as the ship falls behind them.

"Do you want to tell me what that was back there?" he demands as Appa flies them off towards the nearest island, the home of a killer. The moon illuminates the pallor of his shocked face, drained of any blood for her to control.

Katara remains silent as the grave for a moment before replying soberly, "The human body is more than seventy percent water, Zuko."

Zuko cringes at the thought. "But to actually control someone… like, from the inside- it's not natural. I didn't even think it was possible."

Katara's hands scratch at a tear, there to almost prove her point, and Appa's reins fall to the floor of the saddle. "I wish it wasn't," she murmurs, and begins to cry softly, slumping to the ground, every ounce of darkness that possessed her before vanishing for the moment. "Am I a monster, Zuko?" The question and the crying astonishes him.

Zuko grimaces and moves toward her, patting her arm uncertainly. She withdraws from his touch like it burns, just as he expected, but he had to try. For her. "No, Katara. You do have power, and anger, and sadness, and strength, yes. But one thing separates them from you. You have a conscience. A heart, Katara, and as long as you keep sight of that you will never be like them."

She tries to stifle her tears, because Zuko is the last person she wants to see her cry, but it only makes it worse.

"It's okay," Zuko soothes, remembering the Crystal Catacombs and her offer to use her healing water on him. "We're going to heal your scars." The words are ironic and painful, but is exactly what the girl needs to hear, and she is able to stand again and take the reins, her tears dwindling and making room for that darkness once more.

"Why don't you let me do that?" Zuko asks, reaching for the reins.

However, she is too proud and unyielding to relinquish her hold on the thin, cracked rope, despite her tiredness being so visible and her emotions so close to the surface, barely tucked away beneath her determined mask. "I've got it."

"No, really-" "I said I've got it." Obstinate Katara is back; he wonders if he can blame her mood swings on the full moon or the blatant lack of rest. Or maybe it is the pressure of what looms ahead, the solemn swear for a life in trade for a life that eats away at her own. "Just get some rest or something. We'll be there by morning."

So, almost reluctantly, as if he'd rather she be in his place, Zuko lies down to sleep, the last thing he sees before blacking out being her slim, rigid figure, the dark hair flowing in the breeze, as she holds taut the ropes as if they are the only things that keep her from floating away or crashing down. All the same, she manages to keep her destiny on track, ever at the controls and refusing to be anywhere different, but Zuko is unsure whether he can sleep soundly because of this.

* * *

><p>The silver rain falls from a dreary gray sky like dismal tears, but Katara presses on resiliently, stalking the limping figure of the aging Yon Rha like a lioness and its prey. Her fists are clenched, the sharp nails digging into her palms, and her eyes are narrowed almost to slits. Zuko has never seen her like this, and it scares him.<p>

Yon Rha, it seems, suspects he is being followed. With a hand-woven basket in his arms, he peers behind him with a wrinkled face but finds no one, nothing except grass and sky and a tree.

"No one sneaks up on Yon Rha!" he shouts on impulse, throwing a burst of fire at the tree and sending it in flames.

Smirking slightly, Zuko darts forward and presses the man's shocked face into the mud, covering them both in the slop. "We weren't behind the tree."

"Please, take my money, take whatever you want, just don't hurt me." Yon Rha pleads, but Katara shakes her head, overcome by the need for vengeance that shows on her face and paints her heart black.

"You mean you don't recognize me?"

"No! I…I'm not sure!"

"Oh, you better think hard. Remember like your life depends on it."

Yon Rha studies her face, dripping with rain. "Yes," he whispers hoarsely. "Of course. You are the little Water Tribe girl. The daughter of the last waterbender in the South Pole."

"You killed my mother."

"I know, and I apologize." He almost brightens at a sudden thought. "Take my mother- that would be fair!"

Katara frowns and lifts her chin high as streaks of the sky run in rivulets down her tilted face. "I've always wondered what kind of person could do these things, and now I see. There's just nothing inside you; you are pathetic and sad, and a terrible person." She takes a breath, gasping for air in a world that's closing in. "My mother, Kya, lied to you. She was not the last waterbender. She was protecting her."

"What? Who is it?"

Zuko notices something pass over Katara's face- a war of conflicting emotions that refuse to coincide, tearing her apart in jagged bursts of energy like the lightning and the clouds. Her face twitches, and, all of a sudden, the rain around them stops, suspended in the air eerily, a magnificent display of bending. Zuko watches, both impressed and horrified, as Katara's turns it to sharp icicles and hurls them, these weapon of everything she is, at Yon Rha's defenseless form lying forlorn in the dirt. "_It was me_!"

But just before they hit their target, Katara stops them, and they float a centimeter from the old man's cringing face, a face that does not show remorse, just wonders if impending death will hurt. To Zuko's amazement, she releases her hold on the rain, and it sloshes downward immediately, sloppily drenching both her and Yon Rha even more than they already are.

"But no matter how much I hate you," she manages, "I can't do it."

As she takes off, sprinting for the shore, Zuko turns his face to Yon Rha and spits out, "You're lucky she is a real human being. Unlike you. You're lucky Kya wasn't _my_ mother."

Then, possessed by the painful memory of Ursa's face, Zuko runs after his companion towards Appa, towards those with hearts that ache for those lost and pain that can compare.

* * *

><p>They ride in silence to nearby Ember Island. Not talking, not thinking, just listening to each other breathe and wondering how Katara could've ever considered stopping another's breath for eternity. They wonder how on earth they could've outrun the storm over the course of the journey, a clashing of lightning and rain. They wonder why the world always seems to prove them wrong when their gazes meet and quickly part again.<p>

When the familiar shores come into view, Zuko finally ventures the words.

"I'm proud of you, Katara."

"Please," she whispers, the words catching in her throat. "Don't say another word. Just drop me off at the dock and get the others. I need some time alone."

Zuko nods wordlessly as Katara slips off the bison, and he pretends not to notice the solitary teardrop on her cheek, pretends that he doesn't have the thought _she is not weak because she cries. She is strong because she is not afraid to feel. _He also manages to pretend something in him doesn't hurt as well when he leaves her alone on the dock, wondering what it would take to become invisible, how deep she would have to dive.

The journey back to the group is so quiet Zuko cannot even attempt to block out the memories, and it is almost a huge relief when the rest of the group finds places on the saddle.

"What happened?" Aang questions. His eyes shine with worry. "What happened with Katara?"

"She's waiting for us on Ember Island. It's about a half-hour flight from here." "No, I mean…." Aang trails off. "Did she…?"

"We found the man, if that's what you mean," Zuko replies delicately, and, looking away from Aang, searches Sokka's face, stunned and confused from across from him, half wanting the man to be gone but also wishing a part of Katara wouldn't be as well.

"Is he dead?" Zuko's friend asks flatly.

Zuko pauses a second before replying in a whoosh of tumbling breath. "No. He isn't. Katara was about to do it, but she couldn't." He gulps, presses on. "Once I might've considered that weak. But now I know that it is the strongest thing she could've done." Zuko notice that Suki and Toph pause to consider this, but Aang and Sokka are too busy beaming with a forbidden sort of pride, a pride that remains radiant all the way to the beaches of Ember Island, swamped with Zuko's memories, some good and others bad but every single one painful.

When Appa lands, Aang tumbles off and races to Katara, who is still sitting on the dock with her toes in the water. The choppy sea mirrors the broken reflection of her face.

"Katara!" Aang gushes as the others except Zuko head up to Zuko's old summer home and begin to unpack. "Zuko told me what you did. I'm glad you've chosen to forgive." "But I didn't forgive him. I'll never forgive him." She looks up at Zuko and smiles, a heartbroken smile full of shattered glass. "But I am ready to forgive you."

And then, against all odds and against all prior conversations, Katara throws her arms around his neck and hugs him, hard, knocking his breath from his chest. His fingers find her hair and he closes his eyes, trying to make a new memory to inhabit this place, now that the source of the old good ones, Mai, is gone. Then she lets go, heading up with the others.

"You were right about what she needed," Zuko tells Aang. "Violence wasn't the answer."

Aang shrugs. "It never is."

A terrible thought overwhelms Zuko, a thought full of fury and fire and the world's fragile fate. "No? Then what are you going to do when you face my father?"

* * *

><p>It is ten minutes later and Zuko roams the halls of his old beach house, still wondering what Aang's answer is, as he gave none. It is the minute after that that Zuko finds himself pinned to the wall by a furious Sokka, a startled Suki standing back a few feet, just as surprised as Zuko.<p>

"Why?" Sokka demands. "Why do you smell like her?"

Zuko looks at Katara's older brother curiously. "Because she hugged me."

And this, it seems, is the most impossible thing that's happened in weeks.


	11. Chapter 10: The Phoenix King

All right! Welcome to part one of the finale!

_"The world consumed by fire,  
><em>_The taste of ashes on your tongue;  
><em>_Though it does not seem like truth,  
><em>_The battle has been won."  
><em>-Me

Once again, thanks for reading, and please review!

* * *

><p>The blast of fire sets ablaze the morning, the searing heat devouring the oxygen in the air. Zuko, however, is still able to gasp and grit his teeth when his pupil makes a feeble attempt to mimic it.<p>

"Come on," Zuko criticizes. "You have to be more fierce."

Aang takes a breath and draws back his arm, then steps forward and throws a punch at empty air. A red-hot flame erupts from it, slightly better than its predecessor. Sokka, Toph, and Suki, the spectators, clap politely.

"That was a little better," Zuko admits honestly. "But I still think-"

"Hey, guys!" Katara calls out, striding into the courtyard with a full tray of drinks. "I made some watermelon juice, do you- oh!" Aang and Sokka are in front of her immediately, hands outstretched, while Suki laughs at them from the steps. Before any of them can get a drink, however, Toph bends the tray of juice towards her lazily, the glasses rattling at the impact of the rock as they sail through the air and land with a thud, the drinks sloshing a bit less than they should've.

Zuko grinds his teeth. "How are you all able to be so lazy?"

"How are _you_ so uptight?" Toph replies swiftly, causing Sokka to snort with laughter he half-heartedly attempts to stifle.

"I am not uptight! I just think this isn't the best time for a vacation!"

"I for one," Sokka contributes lightly, "enjoy being lazy. So I am heading down to the beach, and am going to have a party. Anyone who likes having fun can join me." No one says anything at first, so he pulls Suki up and says "Come on" before marching down to the beckoning shore.

Toph smiles slightly, her unseeing eyes spying trouble in the future. "Come on, Sugar Queen," she sighs to Katara. "Let's make sure Sokka doesn't hurt himself."

"I'll come!" Aang offers as the two girls begin to leave, but Zuko quickly rebukes him, hurls sharp words at the boy that don't seem to have the same effect they used to.

"Aang, you're in the middle of a firebending lesson!"

"We can pick it up later!" Aang calls, his toes already squishing the sand, eyes alight with the ocean breeze that sweeps him away all too soon.

Zuko curses softly under his breath. The comet returns in three days, how can they be so stubborn and lethargic? The world is in jeopardy, and they, a group of powerful teenagers, are the ones destined to save it. And they don't care that they are not ready, don't even seem to know just how much the world's fate rests upon them, except for perhaps Aang, who chooses the avoid it for as long as he can. Zuko knows he is the only one to be fully aware that he has this looming reality hanging above his head, for destiny is what ruined his life and saved it ten times over. He knows what he must do, and who must die- the man who declared Zuko prince and son, the man who took that all away in an instant. It lays heavily on his shoulders, the imaginary corpse of his father, like the weight of the world. The painful memories that so often overtake the teen all lead back to Ozai's face, a face unscarred to everyone but Zuko, appropriately.

_Something has to be done,_ Zuko muses. _Oh, yes, something must be done._

He walks forward, peering at the five friends grouped happily on the beach, without a care in the world, oblivious to all the cares they _should_ have. As much as he yearns to join them, he knows that it would do the world no good. They will lose this war if Zuko does not think of something to incite a more determined reaction, something to fan the flames. And if they lose, not only will the world fall into a frenzied chaos, but what will become of Zuko's forsaking of his crown, his country? Will it prove to be his greatest regret, instead of his greatest revelation?

_How do the others not yet feel this heat? _he wonders, and then it hits him, what he can do. He must make them feel the heat.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Aang yells, dodging a tongue of scorching fire thrown his way. He and Zuko stand breathless near the house, while the others race to catch up and decipher how Zuko has spun into madness, lost all control and fallen victim once more to the influence of his past and his family.

Zuko doesn't answer, just sends another column of hellish flame in Aang's direction with bared teeth and most arduous effort.

"Zuko, _stop_!" he hears Sokka screech futilely, but Zuko's vision of the rest of the group is quickly blocked by the dense smoke rising from the very trust he has worked for the past few weeks as it burns and disintegrates.

"I won't hurt you!" Aang shouts, airbending a blast of fire away from his body and scattering wisps of flame it in all direction. He turns on a dime and sprints through the courtyard into the house.

"Fight back!" Zuko screams at his retreating back. "FIGHT BACK!"

Aang cranes his neck in the doorway to look at his unexpected opponent, face flushed, and sends a stream of cool air his way. Zuko is knocked backward in a whoosh of wind and lands flat on his back; the attack was not designed to hurt him, he knows, just give the Avatar time to escape. He sputters out a cough as he sits up, forces himself to his feet when he spies silhouettes darting through the smoke.

"Aang!" roars Zuko as he runs into the house, the walls and objects catching fire, fire that licks and destroys as it consumes with a deadly kiss. But what does he care for these things, the relics of his family, no matter what Aang d the others are starting to think? It is better that they fall into these ashes, are devoured by his fire and his fire alone- the paintings and toys and ancient books that he once spun his happiest dreams of, before he woke up to the harsh reality seeping through his sheets.

Aang runs through the crackling orange and red tunnel of a hall, and Zuko forces his way through the eye-stinging smoke and gusts of needed but malevolent air. They fight their way through the crumbling foundation of the house, and only when they reach fresh air again does Aang finally launch a real attack, sends his own jet of flame at Zuko, which is quickly deflected but followed by a clump of heavy dirt that hits him square in the chest. Zuko tumbles backward and feels cold hands clamp onto his arms and twist painfully. Katara. She shoves him to the ground, fury etched on her face as the others tentatively come up behind her. Aang also approaches, panting, as Katara fumes above Zuko.

"What is wrong with you?"

Zuko grimaces. "How can you guys just relax and have a party when the comet comes in three days time?"

Sokka blinks. "Is that what that was about? Spirits, you could've just asked!"

"You wouldn't have listened!"

No one says anything in reply to this, just shift uncomfortably, as if they all bear a secret Zuko hasn't an inkling of.

"Well? Are you going to answer my question or not?"

Aang sighs, and shuffles his feet. "Well, the thing is… we sort of decided to wait until, you know… after the comet. The Fire Nation has already won the war, why can't we just wait until we're ready?"

Zuko looks at Aang in disbelief, but allows the Avatar to help him to his feet again. "What do you mean?" he asks dumbly, fear making his stomach sink.

"Well, things couldn't possibly get any worse, right?" Katara says.

"Actually," Zuko replies grimly, and notices with a bleak satisfaction when panic overcomes their faces. "They can. On the day before the eclipse, a war meeting was held, the last I ever attended. We discussed the rebellion of the Earth Kingdom, and Azula…well, Azula suggested we just burn it all the to ground. So my father came up with a plan. To do that." The others don't say a word, are smothered by a stunned silence. "So, if you guys wait to save the world, there might not be a world to save anymore."

"You mean…" Aang says slowly, eyes widening in horror. "I have three days to confront the Fire Lord?"

Zuko nods dourly. "I'm sorry. I thought you knew."

Aang wobbles slightly, his knees giving way, and Zuko and Sokka hurriedly reach out to steady the younger boy.

"It'll be fine, Aang," Sokka assures. "The six of us can take him, no problem."

"The six of us?" Aang repeats numbly.

"You didn't think we'd be sitting on the sidelines while the Fire Lord's wiping the floor with you, did you?" Toph questions, and the others cringe at her bluntness.

"What? No!" Aang objects loudly, finally grasping the concept as if it's something slick and slippery. "I'm not letting you guys put yourselves in danger for me!"

The other five exchange slightly amused glances.

"A little late for that, sport." Sokka laughs. "We are going take down Fire Lord Ozai together."

And that's when Zuko experiences his first group hug with the gang- well meant, encouraging, and extremely awkward.

"Come on, Aang," he says after he escapes, and he and the young airbender head to the courtyard once more. "If you are going to face my father, there is one technique you must know."

"And what's that?"

"How to redirect lightning." He takes a breath and walks him through the movements. "Although the feeling is exhilarating, one wrong move could prove fatal."

"Well, not _fatal_, right? I mean, there's always Katara and some magic healing water."

Katara bites her lip as she and Toph watch nearby. "Actually, I used it all up in Ba Sing Se." She avoids Zuko's gaze when she says this.

"Oh." Aang mimics Zuko's motions, trying hard not to show fear. He looks at Zuko, who nods approvingly.

"Against an opponent as vicious as Ozai, Aang, you'll have no choice but to take his life." He pretends not to notice the disgusted look. "You have to direct it from your arm and through your stomach to your other arm. If it touches your heart, that's it."

Aang looks queasy. "Have you ever redirected lightning, Zuko?"

The ex prince of the Fire Nation sighs, remembering a sunless day and the feeling of power coursing through his body, an electric storm. "Once."

However, he knows the storm is only beginning.

* * *

><p>"Toph, would you watch where you're throwing those rocks?" Sokka yells, slicing his sword through the air.<p>

"I am not Toph!" Toph cackles from her place next to a melon dummy of the Fire Lord as she sends rocks at the training team. "I am Melon Lord!"

Zuko senses Katara roll her blue eyes from next to him, and the two continue to weave through one another's patterns and footsteps, watching each others' backs vigilantly and sending their elements through the rocks Toph hurls at them. They are a good team, Zuko must admit, but he can still feel Katara's anger at him for his earlier stunt contaminating their dynamic.

Aang breaks through the path they've cleared for him and uses his glider to approach the dummy, a vicious scowl on his face. He pauses with his glider raised just above the melon, and Toph, as well as Zuko and the others, frowns.

"What are you waiting for?" Sokka calls from where he stands, sword poised, with Suki and her dangerous fans. "Finish him off!"

"I can't," Aang replies. "It doesn't feel right."

Sokka storms up to Aang and thee dummy and promptly slices off its head. "There. That's how it's done."

* * *

><p>The night passes excruciatingly slow, and Zuko's dreams are too twisted to decipher; all he can remember is the terror upon waking up, a terror that is proved justified when he realizes that Aang is gone that following morning.<p>

"Katara, have you seen Aang?"

She looks at him worriedly. "No. Suki and I looked everywhere. At first I thought he might be on a Spirit World journey, but his body would still be here, right?"

"Right." he answers glumly. Sokka, Toph, and Suki troop into the room. "Let's split up and search the island.

"I'm going with Zuko!" Toph states, too possessively and too quickly. Everyone looks at her strangely, and Zuko edges and inch or two away. "What? Everyone else has gone on life-changing field-trips with him. It's my turn."

"Wait a minute," Sokka says. "Is his glider still here? And Appa?"

"Yes…"

"Then he probably didn't run away."

"You think he was stolen?" Suki questions worriedly.

"It's a possibility."

Everyone looks inexplicably to Zuko, who scowls. "Why are you all looking at me?"

"Well," Toph supplies. "You _are_ the expert on hunting the Avatar."

Zuko rubs the back of his neck, considering his options. Two days until the comet, so they have no time for guesses. "I know who can help us," he says.


	12. Chapter 11: The Old Masters

"Why are we in the Earth Kingdom?" Sokka asks above the boisterous noise as they approach the dimly lit building. It is nearly dark; they have spent all day flying after waiting two hours in case Aang came back.

Zuko pushes open the door to the rowdy Earth Kingdom tavern to find it in an uproar, a full-scale bar fight. Two men break bottles on each others heads, while another knocks a man unconscious in a single punch. One woman, the only female and perhaps the youngest in the bar, with a skull barrette in her long black hair, shoves a man onto a table, which consequently breaks in half; the poor man collapses onto the floor, covered in dust, and the young woman throws back her head and laughs as the fight continues around her, as if no one else will dare cross her.

"That's why," Zuko says, pointing to the young woman, maybe in her early twenties. She looks the same as he remembers, majestic and venomous in the same manner as a snake. "June."

June the bounty hunter looks up in vague recognition as they stride towards her slender form, clad in black. A confident smirk stretches across her pale face, paralleled by her cunning dark eyes.

"I see you and your girlfriend got back together," she drawls.

"We're not together!" Zuko and Katara say hotly at the same time, and they each blush in turn under June's mocking grin of perfect teeth, a flash of pearly white in an aura that screams black.

"Yet you've come back, I see." she says to Zuko, her voice silky. "Got another job for me, lover boy?"

"As a matter of fact, yes."

June frowns and looks the lot up and down expectantly, suddenly down to business. "You have payment, I assume?"

Zuko's throat tightens. "We have no money, no."

June sighs dramatically, as if she honestly wishes she could've worked for them. "Then I guess my services won't be of any help to you." She begins to turn, and Zuko grasps at straws.

"Is saving the world a good enough payment for you?" Zuko demands, and June narrows her eyes. She steps close to Zuko so that they are nose to nose, close enough for Zuko to determine the scent clinging to her pale skin: rosemary and the faintest trace of bittersweet alcohol.

"I know exactly who you are, _Prince_ Zuko." Her voice is a dangerous whisper behind a closed door. "So who's world are we talking about? Yours? Or mine?"

Zuko returns the cold stare. "Both," he replies, and June takes a step back. "It's the Avatar."

He watches a conflict clash in her face as she is torn between routine and prospering or heroism and justice. A girl that has only ever had to look out for herself, now trusted with the responsibility of thousands.

"Follow me" is all she says when the waged war is through, and they obey, slipping out of the unruly tavern and circling around the back. Her enormous Shirshu is tied up there, snorting and pawing at the ground in the same restlessness Zuko feels.

"Oh, Nyla!" she calls to it in a purr, stroking its hideous nose. "Who's my good Shirshu, sweet Snuffly-Wuffly?" She looks at Zuko, the over-the-top sweetness replaced once more by both a exotic seductiveness and a grim practically, a combination that is almost contradictive. "Give me something of the Avatar's for her to sniff."

"I have Aang's staff," volunteers Katara, and she places it in June's waiting hand. The bounty hunter waggles it under her prized pet's nose with a smirk. The creature inhales sharply, and Zuko prays for a direction, a north to his compass. The reaction, however, is far from expected. Nyla rears back onto its two back legs and bellows a half screech, half roar; June backs up hands in the air, palms facing the beast, and nearly collides with Zuko as the creature shakes it head as if in pain.

"What does that mean?" he questions the young woman, frustrated.

"It means your friend's gone."

Zuko notices Sokka gulp laboriously. "Gone as in dead, gone?"

"Nope." retorts June puzzlingly. "We could find him if he were dead. Your friend is _gone _gone. As in, he doesn't exist." June seems unfazed by the gawking, stunned expression on Zuko's face, and dubiously ignores those of the others. "Wow, that's a real head-scratcher. See you."

Frantically, Zuko grabs at June's retreating sleeve and she shakes him off, testy and cold, a whole unknown history in her eyes that Zuko can't even begin to sort. He is suddenly glad for the first time in weeks that his uncle is not there, an emotion that almost feels treacherous- June would surely abandon them then. Then he is practically struck down to his buckling knees by the subsequent idea, one that is terrible and desperate and beautiful and a game of chance.

"Wait," he begs June, and to his ultimate relief, she halts. He then turns to Katara, Toph, Sokka, and Suki. "We obviously aren't going to be able to find Aang right now. So we need a backup plan. There's only one other person who could possibly defeat my father besides the Avatar. I'll be right back with a smell sample." And he leaves them all gaping, they thrown by the twist in the story and Zuko by the twist in his stomach.

He approaches Appa, still uncertain about how he'd deduced this conclusion but all the same so confident about it. Why his Uncle Iroh, of course! Who else besides the vanished Aang even has the slightest prayer? Zuko distractedly rummages through his pack and finds it at the bottom, his quarry, a forsaken, old, lonely sandal that stinks with the most pungent of odors_. If the Shirshu cannot track this scent_, he thinks.

"Here!" he calls to June as he races back, breathless. She takes the shoe with a wrinkled face, and by the very edge of her long fingernails, painted black, she waves it under Nyla's snout. Almost immediately, the Shirshu points a direction and June leaps on its back and bounds away.

"Wait!" Zuko yells, he and the others running for the bison. They stumble onto Appa, and while Katara shrieks "Yip yip", Zuko calls out again into the dark trees.

"June! Wait for us!"

She doesn't, unsurprisingly, but Zuko and the others know Appa is capable of catching up quickly.

"Who are we after, Zuko?" Sokka asks him, brow furrowed as he manages to settle into his seat.

Toph, on the other hand, seems to know already. "It's your uncle, isn't it?"

Zuko nods before remembering she cannot see it. "Yes." he croaks out. "He's the only one who stands a chance if Aang doesn't show up soon."

"But Aang _will_ show up," Katara insists. "We aren't giving up on him."

"Of course not," amends Zuko. "But Uncle's our only backup, and we need to start planning." He looks down off the bison into the fir trees below, and finds a swift but stocky silhouette.

"Spirits, June!" Zuko scolds the young woman loudly, and June laughs at the furious look on his reddened face.

"Is that supposed to be scary, lover boy?" she calls over the ferocious roar of the wind, a gale smelling of a heavily wooded night and the depths of summer.

Sokka peers at her over the side of the saddle. "Do you know where we're going?"

"Not a clue," admits June gleefully. "Why don't you ask Nyla?"

The group assesses Nyla again, taking in his coarse fur and barred, sharp, yellow teeth, and almost immediately Sokka says, "No, that's okay." His voice cracks almost imperceptibly. "I like surprises."

* * *

><p>When Zuko and the others arrive at the crumbled ruins of Ba Sing Se's great wall, he thinks there must be a mistake. Surprise, indeed.<p>

"Why would my uncle be _here_?" he questions Katara softly, but he is one step away from speaking to himself. "Why would he come here, to the very site of his greatest failure?"

Katara just looks at him. "Because he is able to face his mistakes."

All the same, Zuko hops off Appa and glances at June inquiringly. "Are you sure we are at the right place?"

"My Shirshu doesn't lie," replies June. "Your creepy uncle is right beyond there. So I guess this is where I leave you, correct?"

Zuko shuffles his feet. "That would probably be best."

"And no payment?"

"Not if you don't include saving the lives of hundreds."

"I don't" is her stout reply. "But I guess it was a duty that had to be done. But if nothing happens tomorrow, you're a dead man, Prince Zuko." She circles behind him, then rests her cold hands on his tense shoulders, a feeling both intoxicating and unsettling. Zuko has no idea what she is doing until he hears a loud tearing of fabric. June waves the stripe of rusty red cloth from his collar like a prize as she strides back to her mount.

"So I can find you," she explains, and then, without a deeper explanation, leaps onto Nyla and disappears into the night. Zuko watches her go, still slightly confused, then turns back to the destroyed wall where the others have gathered.

Katara doesn't looks away quickly enough, and he has no idea why their expression are like the way they are, full of deeper meanings he cannot fully interpret. He walks over to join the group and ends up just staring and standing at the foot of the wall, the place home to both his and his uncle's greatest failures.

Suddenly, a barrier of fire erupts around them, menacing and flickering. The startled group crowds together in a sudden burst of shock and terror, but the flames a die as quickly as they begin, extinguished almost regretfully.

"Well, don't these faces looks familiar!" cackles a voice, but only Katara and Sokka show recognition at it.

"King Bumi?" Sokka asks in disbelief. The entire company glances up at the source coming from the top of the crumbling wall- a stooped old man with a mad glint in his eyes, flanked by a white-haired man in Water Tribe clothes, a male with stark white hair that stands in spikes, and lastly, a face Zuko recognizes, one that belongs to an older man with streaks of gray in his dark hair, a sword hanging at his side.

_Master Piandao? _he wonders, just as Katara yells "Paku? Jeong-Jeong?" and Sokka screeches the very name Zuko has just thought.

"Wait," he says to Sokka, suddenly halting everything, because this, it seems, is the most confusing part of all this. "You know Master Piandao?"

"You mean he taught you?"

Zuko gestures to the broad swords at his back. "When I was very young. You, too?"

Sokka waves his space sword. "He actually helped me make this."

"Guys!" interrupts Katara. "Catch up later!" She looks at the man she called Paku as the four old masters join the teens on the ground. "What are you all doing here, Master Paku?"

"Actually," corrects the white-haired man in Water Tribe garb. "I think Grandfather Paku would be more appropriate."

Katara's eyes shine. "You mean, you and Gram-Gram found each other? That's so great!"

"Ahem." Toph clears her throat, then repeats, "Catch up later."

"Wait!" the man called King Bumi, king of Omashu, yells suddenly. "Someone very important is missing from your group!" He gets right in an uncomfortable Sokka's stunned face. "Where's Momo?"

Zuko almost laughs as Sokka stutters his response. "He's gone…and so is Aang."

"Well it sounds like you have a lot to tell us. Come on," says Piandao. "We'll take you to our camp."

* * *

><p>"Wait!" Zuko yelps in the midst of the old masters' tents. "The Order of the White Lotus? Is my uncle here?"<p>

"General Iroh is the one who called this meeting to order," says Jeong-Jeong, and Zuko's eyes widen.

"Can I see him? Is he with you?"

Piandao smiles slightly, then points to the camp's very last tent. "Your uncle is through there, Prince Zuko."

It seems like his heart stops as he runs to the tent; his uncle is now just five feet away, separated from him by a thick flap of canvas. He wants to run and hug his uncle like a child, wants to get down on his knees and plead for forgiveness. However, Zuko cannot force himself to take a step. So instead, he crouches down just outside the tent, and buries his head in his hands.

"Why aren't you going in?" a voice questions softly, and Zuko chances a look up to find Katara standing there, worried.

"What if he doesn't forgive me?" Zuko voices his greatest fear; it tumbles past his gaping lips and into the night air.

Katara helps him up almost soundlessly. "He will."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because you are a better person now, Zuko," she says quietly, and with these words Zuko finds the strength to step inside the cozy tent.

Only to discover Iroh snoring loudly.

With a small smile, Zuko settles cross-legged on the ground and waits for his uncle to stir. After all, it is the least he can do.

The minutes pass, seep into hours, and the sun begins to rise in a splotch of burning color, symbolic of the mixed feelings that Zuko contemplates inside him as his uncle begins to wake: terror, in case his uncle is incapable of forgiving, joy, at the very sight of the only family member he has left that he is proud to claim, love, because his uncle was there to be the father Zuko always wished he had, and finally shock, if only because it was really happening.

"I know you must have mixed feelings about seeing me here." Zuko starts the phrase strongly, but further along begins to break, sadness seeping through the syllables. "And I…just wanted to tell you how sorry I was. I am so…s-sorry, Uncle, for e-everything." Before he even realizes, tears are streaming down both cheeks, tears for his uncle, his mistakes, and the person he used to be. "And I-"

He is halted by Iroh's arms encircling him suddenly, holding him tightly in a way only he can get away with. And Zuko knows this is more than he could've hoped for, everything he wouldn't even dare to dream of. A reunion as if he had never left, never betrayed the trust or screamed the angry words, never blamed him for his unhappiness. All the misgivings leave him then as he hugs his uncle back; there is only this moment of reconciliation, this elation that is building alongside the shock.

"What?" Zuko manages, not even trying to stop the trickle of tears. "How can you forgive me so easily? I thought you would be angry."

"No, Zuko," Iroh says, and the sound of his voice makes Zuko happier than he has been in ages. "I was never angry. I was sad, because you had lost your way." Iroh pulls out of the hug and beams proudly at his nephew, tears pricking at both their eyes. "But you've found it again." Zuko attains a sad smile through the trails of tears left on his face, one his uncle no longer sees as scarred, as his uncle continues, "And I am so happy that you have found your way here to me."

"It wasn't that hard, Uncle," Zuko croaks, hugging his uncle again. "You have a pretty strong scent."

* * *

><p>"What do you mean, no?" Zuko demands of Uncle Iroh later that morning, nearly exasperated, spilling his breakfast onto the grass. "No one knows where Aang is, and you are the only one who can defeat the Father Lord!"<p>

"Fire Lord," Toph corrects abruptly.

"What?"

"You said 'Father Lord'."

"Oh."

"Zuko," Iroh says to his nephew gently, "Even if I did defeat Ozai- and I'm not saying that I could- it would not be right. History would see it as a brother killing a brother over a crown. The Avatar must be the one to restore balance to this broken world."

"But you will be there to take the throne, right?"

"No, Zuko. It must be you."

Zuko's heart pounds wildly. Him, Fire Lord, the very hope he gave up on the day of the eclipse? "Me? Wha- why…?"

"It is rightfully yours, and you must be there at the climax of the battle to claim it. But Azula will be there, waiting for you, and she will be quick to disagree, for Ozai has given her the responsibility while he takes a higher title of the Phoenix King. And you may need help to face her."

Zuko barely has to consider. He looks at the fierce waterbender sitting beside him, the one with whom he has progressed with the most. "Katara?" he asks. "Would you help me face Azula?"

Katara frowns for a second, and Zuko knows she is picturing Aang fighting Ozai without her. But then her common sense gets the best of her protectiveness, and she nods. "Yes. I'd be glad to help you."

"And we will do whatever we can to stop the Fire Nation fleet from destroying the Earth Kingdom," Sokka says, gesturing to him, Suki, and Toph.

Zuko turns back to his uncle. "But what are you going to do?"

"The Order and I are going to take back Ba Sing Se in the name of the Earth Kingdom."

"And after all this is over?"

"I believe I am going to reopen my tea shop, and play Pi Sho _every_ day!" He rises to his feet along with the circle of teens. "Today, destiny is our friend. I know it."

* * *

><p>I must admit- not my best chapter. Feel free to contradict me hahaha. I don't think I did the reconciliation scene justice; but, you know, I tried. I've already started on Part 3, though, and I think that chapter's a lot better. So stick around.<p> 


	13. Chapter 12: Into the Inferno

Honestly, this isn't actually that long of a chapter, but it is proabably my favorite, the second-to-last installment. I completed this story (A 65 page document, size 12) in less than a month. And I hope you've enjoyed it so far. I will post the final chapter soon.

* * *

><p>The comet blazes through a sky spattered with blood red color, and Zuko, up in the evening air on Appa, has never felt so powerful. However, he knows it the comet will only empower Azula, too, as well as his father. His father, who will, at best, be dead by the time the distant morning arrives. What kind of world has this become, where he wishes for the death of his father, his nation's era of prosper and strength? What kind of world has this become, where the worst thing that could happen is his father and king's survival?<p>

"Don't worry," Katara assures him. "We can take Azula."

"It's not us I'm worried about," Zuko responds. "It's Aang. What if he doesn't have the guts to take out my father?" He gazes at Katara, a worried gaze of flickering ambition. "What if he loses?"

"Aang won't lose." Her voice is confident, but Zuko sees right through it as if it is made of glass, glass with spider-web cracks blossoming from the breaking point. She takes a feeble breath. "Do you think you'll be able to do it? You know, kill her, if it comes to it?"

Zuko looks away. "Azula isn't to me exactly like Sokka is to you."

"Obviously, but…"

"I don't know, Katara." he replies. "But I think I'll have to find out."

His future comes into view then, on the horizon Zuko has ever been putting off. The sheltered island of the approaching Fire Nation capitol glows with the lanterns and hopes of the waiting. Zuko pities them, for he knows he must crush their desires and assume the role of their greatest enemy if he ever wants to be their hero.

"There." He guides Appa's reins into the city, unnoticed by the citizens huddled inside with their families waiting for their loved ones to return. Do they know they support the wrong side, or, like Zuko once was, are they blinded by the great lie of expanding prosperity, fighting for a country without legitimate moral beneath its surface? Whatever the case, the capitol is a ghost town; no one walks the cobblestone streets, no one sells their signature wares, no one offers loud praise to the Fire Lord. Despite the comet's strength, a few of the common people of the Fire Nation are scared to death inside as their sons and daughters and fathers become murderers, disguising their terror as pride for the generals and the rulers and the government. Those people, these higher classes, are the ones who actually believe whole-heartedly in their cause, while some scarce others in the lower classes do not but are not strong enough to say so.

The palace courtyard is empty of onlookers; Zuko feels a twang of helpless sympathy as he sees his eager sister sit in front of an invisible crowd with four sages about to crown her beneath a scarlet sky. She is a ruler, but no one dares to watch her ascend to power, afraid they'll be disintegrated in the falling flames. Azula does not notice Katara and Zuko at first, but the sages do. They freeze solid and their hands clutch desperate the crown for balance.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Azula barks, whirling to face them. Her voice is strained but still commanding, and her bangs hang choppily in her face, in the eyes that Zuko knows are losing their sight of that slim slice of sanity they once held. "Do it!"

"Sorry," Zuko says loudly, stepping off Appa's saddle and landing on the dirt with a thud, "but you're not going to become Fire Lord today." He raises his chin high as Azula catches sight of him at last. "I am."

Zuko notices Azula's broken stubs of nails as she swipes her uneven bangs from her vision. "Ha!" she laughs. "You're hilarious."

Katara steps up next to Zuko, her face determined and her eyes intense. "And you're going down."

Azula grins, a groundless smirk, and says, too eager, "There's only one way to settle it, then. _Agni Kai. _The showdown that was _always_ meant to be!"

"You're on," Zuko accepts, and the burning sky becomes a war banner, the color of the blood one of them will have to spill. Someone always has to win in an Agni Kai, a meeting of fire, and Zuko knows that the fact that their blood is the same will not stop ruthless and crazed Azula. She, unlike Zuko, does not fear the shreds of her destroyed conscience, the ghosts of her haunting childhood memories, if they are even there at all in this hollow shell of danger and insanity, the girl he once called family that stands broken before him.

"Zuko!" Katara hisses, yanking him backward. "What are you doing? She knows she can't take us both so she's trying to separate us!"

"I know, but I have to do this." "But even you admitted to your uncle that you would need help facing Azula!" "Something's off about her. I don't know what it is, but she's slipping." He shakes off Katara's arm and begins to move away. "And this way, no one else has to get hurt."

"Zuko, wait!" Katara says as an afterthought, and she gives him a quick, fleeting hug. "I have faith in you. In you and your fire."

"Thank you, Katara." And then he slips out of her grasp.

Katara reaches out for him again, face flushed, but he's already walking away from her, towards the center of the courtyard to where his fate will be decided forevermore. By him and him alone, in his struggles and effort. His fate has always been an unstoppable, runaway train. Now is the time it will either crash or finally succeed on its journey.

"Tick tock!" screeches Azula, already on the other side of the courtyard, while a lone Katara watches from the sidelines, as the sages have wisely disappeared somewhere. "Come, brother." She cackles a coarse laugh. "Unless you are afraid."

"Not a chance," Zuko replies gravely. He is not scared of her, he knows that. What he does fear is hurting her, his sister, his own flesh, and no matter how many time he'll deny it, a part of himself.

_But, _a voice in his head whispers. _This is the girl who killed Mai. _

This painful thought ceases only when he kneels on the parched ground, facing away from his sister's crouched form, who is doing the same. They collect their breath, their wills, their hatreds. They bottle up their fears and test their resolves, store away their thoughts. Azula prepares to kill him, and Zuko prepares to come to terms with the fact he may have to do the same.

Azula rises slowly, depositing her cape to the side of her with a familiar smooth air, but Zuko can still see the cracks in her appearance and emotions. "I'm sorry it had to end this way, brother."

Zuko stands as well, stares her in the hysterical eyes. "No, you're not."

Azula smiles with closed-lips and heavily-lidded eyes, then steps forward and sends a column of billowing fire at him almost elegantly. The battle for everything they are has begun, and one of them may not make it out. They are too young for this, but Azula's possible death blow has no hesitation.

Zuko dispels the fire in inch from his face and replies with a hellish orange assault of his own. He follows it up with a huge wall of red fire that meets the blue barrier of Azula's in the middle of their makeshift arena, and the world is lit up by their hatred for each other, made unbearably hot by the flames that have been fanned for at least fourteen years.

"There's a reason Father liked me best, brother dear!" Azula wails, kicking burning danger at him. The licking flames pass so close to the scarred side of his face that the heat is almost unendurable, nearly scalding, like the truth behind the fight, but Zuko grits his teeth and bears it, like everything.

"Yes?" he calls back. "But what of Mother?" Something in Azula's eyes flares as something else shatters; his comment has burned her more than the firebending, and he has no idea why. For Zuko has not seen Azula in front of the mirror as she wonders how and when she lost herself, seen her scream at the voice of her mother that took her too long to realize was only in her head; he has not witnessed the madness in her that she herself cannot escape since the day she was abandoned by the only people she could ever call her friends, the people who were incapable of calling her the same. All he sees is the deadly result, the person he himself could've been if he kept cupped in his hand his father's favor, instead of his mother's favor in his heart.

Zuko sends another jet of fire and it collides with Azula's counterattack, and the result is fire bursting in all directions and setting the tops of the ornate palace alight. Azula glances at the smoke billowing from her home, her one true castle, and sucks in a deep, rattling breath. She sends a powerful and terrifying display of bending his way, but Zuko, with greatest effort, manages to part it like the Red Sea, his foot slipping slightly. The sixteen-year-old, consequently, is almost unprepared when two burning jets appear from his sister's feet and send her soaring rapidly toward him, circling him like a scavenger in a wide arc of terrible light blue.

"You don't stand a chance!" Azula screeches wildly.

Zuko dives to the ground as a searing blaze catapults over his head, nearly missing. From the dirt he spins around as if break dancing, and sends red-hot bending in all directions, knowing it is his only chance to hit Azula that way. And he does; his sister's jets are broken and she tumbles to the ground, gasping both for air and in a surprise, and also groaning with pain.

"What?" Zuko taunts as she rises heavily to her feet, jaw clenched in utter disgust. "No lightning today?"

Azula's eyes are maniacal and burning with hatred as she screams back, "I'll show you _lightning!"_ She summons the spark of electricity ominously, guiding it across her body in a manner that requires both precision and raw talent. Zuko takes up a position to defend himself, to redirect death and spit in its face once more.

But Azula's death blow does not rocket towards him, and he knows where it is going a split second before it is shot. It heads, crackling dangerously, to the sidelined Katara, who is too shocked and afraid to move or be quick enough to escape it. His friend, his companion, his confident, about to be killed by his sister.

He will not let this heartrending loss happen to him again. Not after Mai.

This is his fate, this interception of Katara's, and it has always been this way, no matter how much he fought it. Fate, with its cruel sense of desolate humor, has won its game, and Zuko is not sure which he'd rather have.

The pain is unendurable, unbearable, seemingly the end. Zuko, however, uses his last bit of fading strength to redirect most of the lightning, but cannot manage all of it. It makes his body, full of deadly fire, shudder uncontrollably and land painfully on the ground, convulsing and moaning in absolute hurt, more physical pain than he has ever experienced before.

"Zuko!" he hears Katara scream, horrified, but he does not have the strength to respond, cannot help her as she is left to deal with the jagged shards and remnants of an insane Azula. The pressuring darkness is closing in on him, but it will not follow through. The world is only halfway gone, and so is the pain, as he drifts in and out of consciousness.

_Spirits, just let this end. _he begs. _The cruel joke has been revealed; end it now!_

But the awful pain continues on, its sting undeniable and blocking out all thoughts other than _Please just let me die!_

The last thing he hears before he loses himself again in the hurt, is Azula's crazed laughter, the only thing that proves to him that this is not some kind of dream, no sick nightmare, because this is the part where he always wakes up, right when the terror and the pain is most intense.

Yet this time, he fears, and somehow hopes, that he won't.

Zuko falls into a state constantly falling in and out of consciousness, deaf and blind to the world but still breathing and writhing in utter pain, pain worse than a shattered heart, or a face scarred by his father's flames.


	14. Chapter 13: Avatar Aang

I just want to thank all of you for reading this far, whether it's now or long after this is published. You have no idea how much it means for someone as young as I. I appreciate the support and the reviews, and I encourage you to check out my other stories. Thank you, enjoy, review.

* * *

><p>Zuko violently on his back and fights to choke back his putrid vomit, as he falls into stableness at the painful touch of cool hands on his injury, followed by the sting of water in his open wound. Yelping and shouting, he jerks upward and flails, the entire world painted red instead of just the sky consumed by the comet.<p>

"Shh, Zuko, shh!" a girl's voice commands, near tears. "You're going to be all right, I swear, just hold still!" She places her hands on his chest again, muttering to herself, something like, 'not healing water', and 'please work, please work'.

Suddenly the majority of the pain is gone at last, and Zuko manages to breathe without strain. His eyelids flutter open to find a worried Katara kneeling over him, almost as worn and drained as he from attempting to heal him.

"Thank you, Katara," Zuko breathes laboriously, and Katara's hands fly to her open mouth in gratitude and shock.

"I think I'm the one who should be thanking you," she says, and a tear rolls down her cheek, a trail of liquid mirth.

Something passes between them then, the weakened Zuko and the relieved-beyond-measure Katara, both heroes in their own ways- a possibility. They _could _acknowledge it, then, the possibility of a future as more than friends, _could _tell each other at last what the nagging feelings in the back of their minds is telling them. In that instant they are clear to choose whether or not to do these things, in this smaller crossroad, and, at the moment, both of them seriously consider closing the small gap between them. Until, that is, two different faces come to mind, two different people to fight for, care for, confide in.

And, just like that, the moment passes, like the trails of airplanes criss-crossing in the sky that miss each other by inches. Their roles in each others lives are established without argument. Friends, and perhaps better off that way.

Zuko allows himself to be helped up and supported by Katara, and as he struggles to his feet, he hears a dejected wail from across the courtyard. Azula, her last grip on sanity dissolved, lies chained to the sewer grate, spitting fire and curses and sobs, screaming at the phantoms that won't leave her be.

"How did you do it?" Zuko mutters, wincing at both the pain his chest and the sight of his defeated and insane sister.

"The water in the sewer grating," Katara whimpers, hardly able to look at her. "I lured her onto it, froze us, and tied her up by melting just the water around me."

Zuko nods without another word, then attempts to stumble forward towards this broken girl. Katara's arm is still slung around his waist, though, and she is reluctant to approach Azula.

"You-ouch- you'll be fine." Zuko assures, and she thankfully consents.

Azula glares up at Zuko when he reaches her, preparing to breathe out fire like a dragon. But Zuko is ready for it, and turns her damp, pale face away from him speedily, wincing with strain, suddenly desperate for answers, for closure, before she slips away without remembrance.

"Tell me, is she dead?" Zuko commands, scared witless of the response. "Azula, tell me about Mai! _Are Mai and Ty Lee dead?"_

Azula screams, a loud and broken and sobbing screech, at the sounds of the girls' names, twitching with wide, staring eyes as if she sees their betrayal before her now. She bites her lip so hard it splits, and blood courses out onto her chin, and her eyes are squeezed tightly shut.

"I won't hurt you," Zuko says to her, losing his patience, shaking her trembling, despairing body. "I just need you to tell me!"

Azula snarls something in a garbled voice that sounds closest to "better off dead" as she kicks at Zuko fruitlessly.

"But are they?" Zuko cries. "Azula, please!" The girl, hardly older than a child, and her glassy eyes focus on him in a glare of utter revile. How could this proud and powerful warrior become this? How could the Spirits have ever let them coexist, knowing what they would drive each other to become?

"No," Azula snarls through a mouthful of blood, and Zuko stumbles back, steadied by a stunned Katara.

"Come on," Katara murmurs to him. "We should go."

Zuko obeys without question. "They're alive," he marvels softly as Katara guides him away from the painful remains of Azula. Mai, wonderful Mai, is alive, as well as the cheerful Ty Lee.

"So what now?" Katara asks him. "Do we go look for them?"

Without greatest reluctance, Zuko shakes his head slowly, glancing up at the sky that is losing its red tinge. "We need to find out what happened with Aang."

"But how do we do that? Where do we go?"

"I…don't know. But I have a hunch."

* * *

><p>Katara clutches at Zuko's hand when they spy the creaking metal wreckage of the air ships peeking out from the sea and the shore beneath them, and the view only gets worse from there.<p>

"Oh no…" Katara breathes, for nothing else can be said, no words are capable of describing what they see.

The edge of the Earth Kingdom is naked- bare of trees and shrubs and people, the earth beneath life exposed and shredded. The empty, lifeless past extends to the horizon.

Yet, right before Zuko and Katara's very eyes, the trickling rivers that run across the parched, scorched surface like angry scars rise and flood the land, putting out the raging fires, before retreating again, leaving the ground soft and muddy and ready to renew.

Katara meets Zuko's amber eyes with infinite joy, and the mirthful words tumble past her bright, teary smile. "He's alive!"

"He's alive," Zuko repeats quietly, for that means his father is not. He expected the knowledge of being fatherless to be awful, yet he feels no difference, as he realizes the man that was truly a father to him has conquered Ba Sing Se once more and is safe from harm.

"Look!" gushes Katara. "There they are!"

A group of four stand tall on a large hill- Aang, Sokka, Suki, Toph. Zuko counts them all, murmurs their names, and their unharmed figures are pure miracles, the kind Zuko was sure he no longer believed in.

When Appa lands, Zuko, with Katara's help, struggles up the muddy hill in order. Chest heaving, heart pounding, wound smarting, Zuko watches as Katara throws her arms around every member of the group, saving Aang for last.

"I'm so proud of you, you did it!" she says joyously, but Zuko knows Aang is too distracted by the fact her arms are around him to answer.

"Yeah, he did!" Sokka cheers. "It was awesome! Aang was _amazing_!"

"And you, Sparky?" Toph asks, crossing her arms.

"We defeated Azula, yes" is Zuko's quiet reply.

Suki bites her lip. "And is she dead?"

Zuko shakes his head. "No. I had the sages take her to a mental facility on Whale Tail island. I'll be able to look after her there."

"And you think she'll heal?" Suki asks doubtfully.

Zuko shrugs. "I don't think she'll ever be okay, but I had to try, didn't I?"

_Didn't I? _Zuko wonders. He didn't have the heart to kill her; for surely the state she was in was worse than death, hell during life. He contemplates what it would be like to look at people and see only how they've hurt you, betrayed you, defeated you in the past, because a person like her is nearly impossible to love, when she shows none in return. He wonders what it would be like to never be able to escape the mad, turmoil within.

It is only then that he notices the heap of dark red clothing behind Aang, and the white hand poking out from under its folds, as well as the tangled mess of black hair near the back.

"Father…" he whispers weakly, eyes growing wide. "Is that…?"

Aang walks over to the next Fire Lord, claps a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. "He isn't dead, Zuko."

"What are you talking about?" Zuko chokes out. "You didn't kill him?"

Aang shakes his head. "He's unconscious and weak, Zuko, but he is still alive. He won't be able to hurt anyone again. I took his bending away."

Zuko is stunned. "That's possible?"

Sokka laughs. "That was my reaction, too."

The sixteen-year-old studies the Avatar's face for a long time before he says his own sort of compliment. "You are a much better person than we wanted you to be. And I am so thankful for that. He doesn't deserve it."

"You're right," Aang replies steadily. "He doesn't. But this is the way for the world to heal."

_No, _Zuko thinks. _This is the way for me to heal._

* * *

><p>"Oh, ouch!" Zuko collapses to the tiled floor of the Fire Nation palace in pain, two days later, only halfway into his robe. Taking a deep breath, he staggers back up, clutching his healing wound and hoping no one saw.<p>

"Need some help with that?" a voice asks. Instead of being angry or embarrassed, Zuko turns around, grinning, as a familiar figure steps up and helps him into his silk cloak, the touch gentle and tentative.

"Mai!" Zuko smiles, overjoyed to see her alive and next to him. "You're okay! They let you out already?"

Mai ties the sash behind his back. "My uncle pulled some strings. And it doesn't hurt when the new Fire Lord is your boyfriend." "Wait. Does this mean you don't hate me anymore?"

Mai blushes, a strange and new sight but not entirely unwelcome. "Actually," she says softly, "I think it means I actually… kind of like you."

Then Zuko kisses her, a feeling he's missed and pined for weeks on end, dreamed about, even, a warm feeling that spreads from his toes upward. This is where he belongs, and one of the people he belongs with.

Mai draws back after a few seconds and suddenly frowns. She jabs a finger pointedly into his chest, avoiding the side with the wound and instead nailing into his heart, like always. "But…Don't ever. Break up with me. Again."

Zuko smiles sheepishly. And what else can he say, what else can he venture, but a simple "Okay"?

"Zuko!" calls a young voice, and the newly appointed Fire Lord turns around to find Aang standing in front of the curtain to the balcony, beckoning him over.

Mai squeezes his hand fleetingly. "I'll catch up with you later." And she is gone again, too quickly, another face amongst the crowd outside.

Aang nods to Zuko as he joins him, his eyes trained on the curtain that separates them from the crowd below, a mix of all nations. "I can't believe a year ago I was still hunting you."

"I can't believe a year ago I was still frozen in some ice." He looks up at Zuko. "And now we're friends." "Yeah," Zuko says, testing the word. "Friends." It is a promising option, exactly like Aang said all those months ago, just after Zuko rescued him from Zhao.

"Everything is so different now. The world has changed, so much."

"But we're going to rebuild the world, Aang. And we'll do it together."

With one last flash of a smile, Zuko takes a breath and slips through the curtain to face the crowds and his coronation. No turning back now. Not, of course, that he wants to.

Earsplitting cheers reach his ears as he surveys the people below him, thunderous claps as the crown is placed on his head, where it rightfully belongs. Zuko is beaming, suddenly proud to return to his panicked nation as it scrambles to pick up the pieces of its shattered endeavors, face the fire it has enkindled. The youngest ruler the nation had acquired in centuries, they said, and already perhaps one of the best. The entire world has waited for this moment, the second the new Fire Lord shows his distinguished face, and volunteers to lead them from this dark age they've stumbled into with new light, a beacon to slice the shadows with his faithful fire.

_Fire Lord Zuko. Yes_, he muses. _The name fits nicely_.

"Please," he calls down, silencing their cheers. "The real hero… is the Avatar."

Aang shyly emerges through the curtain, and the cheers are just as immense as Zuko's, if not louder still. For a second, there has been no separation, no darkness, no war. For a second, there is only harmony and adoring faces, only improvements.

And then that second ends, and the chaos of the world settles into place again, for this crazy, mixed up world is finally falling into balance at least. Or at least as balanced as his crazy, mixed up world can achieve.

* * *

><p>Zuko painstakingly clamors alone down the cold, stone, spiraling stairs, lantern held aloft, illuminating the gray walls of the prison. He is suddenly claustrophobic, terrified of these containing walls, and must resist the urge to flee, for there are things he must do, people he must face, problems he must address. Starting with this one, one that has been burned into the back of his mind for years.<p>

"Well, well." drawls a raspy voice, dripping with sarcasm, and Zuko shines his light into the dank cell in front of him, flashing brightness on the face of his father for the first time. "To what do I owe the grace of the new Fire Lord's presence? I suppose I should be grateful he is here to visit me in my lowly prison cell, a father to see his son."

This carefully chosen phrase makes Zuko wonder; Ozai does not ask whether or not his daughter is still alive, even though she is, in a sense, trapped in a hospital on a remote island, being looked after by Zuko and Ty Lee. He does not ask for mercy, which means he is still as proud as ever, even down here, where hope is extinguished. And most importantly, he does not give a care that Zuko is finally happy.

"You are no father of mine," he whispers coldly. "And you should be grateful that the Avatar spared your life." Ozai rolls his eyes. "Why are you here, _Fire Lord _Zuko?"

Zuko puts his face as close to bars as he dares and asks the million-dollar question. "Where. Is. My mother?"

* * *

><p>"So…you're leaving me again?"<p>

Zuko cringes at Mai's assumption. "I wouldn't put it that way, but yes. Just for a week or two, though."

"And you're _not _going to ask me to come."

"I didn't think you'd want to. Do you?"

"No," she says with a thin smile. "Not really."

Zuko kisses her cheek and turns to the door. "I'll be back before you know it."

"I'll be here, I guess." And the bittersweet sadness of their temporary parting is matched by the light drizzling of the rain outside in the streets of Ba Sing Se. Zuko draws up his hood and heads for the tea shop with the air of a man with a secret, a determination that burns in the form of a fire the rain cannot quench.

"Zuko!" calls a cheery, familiar voice as he crosses the threshold of the tea shop, the rain chasing off most customers but not the positive atmosphere.

"Listen, Uncle," Zuko says in a hushed voice. "I have something to tell you."

* * *

><p>Iroh nods over the steam emitted from his tea as Zuko tells him his plan, a sad smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "And you leave when, my nephew?"<p>

Fire Lord Zuko shifts uncomfortably in the doorway of the Jasmine Dragon's kitchen. "Tomorrow." His uncle looks up at him, intrigued. "Did you want me to come with you?"

Zuko gulps down his misgivings, smiles at the family member he is proud to call his as he plans his search for another. "But you're happy here, Uncle. And I think I can handle this on my own."

"After all," Iroh contributes. "You are the Fire Lord now."

And he is; he is an emblem of power with the world at his feet, but he cannot yet control it until he finally gets control of the last lost pieces of the past.

* * *

><p>The mid-morning sky is the blue of a robin's egg, the fiery sun a source of warmth and light. Zuko bids farewell to the Kyoshi Warriors, including Ty Lee, as well as his closest friends from the Water Tribe and the Earth Kingdom, and, most importantly, the Avatar, as he steps onto the boarding plank of the large ship. For a few weeks, the Fire Nation will be left in his uncle's and the Avatar's care. For a few weeks, he will be nothing more than a teenager with a journey to complete. For a few weeks, he will be simply a boy looking for his mother in an enormous world that can no longer threaten to swallow him up, now that he knows his place in it.<p>

"Zuko," calls a voice, a monotone music to his ears, and Zuko peeps over the side of the ship to find Mai standing there with a single bulging suitcase.

"Mai?" he asks in surprise. "What are you doing here? Are you coming with me after all?"

She shrugs her shoulders with a shy smile. "I reconsidered your offer, and I thought that maybe this trip might not be as boring as staying here after all." Zuko helps her on board gladly, the deep green waves sloshing at the iron sides.

With closure on the impending horizon, Zuko waves a temporary goodbye to his friends and his homeland as it fades behind him, even if it is not yet a home. For home is where the heart is, and, for now, his heart stands right beside him, holding his hand, and on the shores of many lands, in the faces of his friends, friends who have faith in his fire.


End file.
